


echoes of lies that i told

by demigodbeautiies



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Nico di Angelo is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26515264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigodbeautiies/pseuds/demigodbeautiies
Summary: “Why do you even need a fake boyfriend?”“Fake partner,” Will corrected, tilting his bottle at Nico. “Or real partner. Anyone, at this point.”
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 96
Kudos: 295





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hahaHA we return with more SolAngelo 
> 
> I am an absolute SUCKER for Fake Dating AUs so it was really only a matter of time before I made one with a SolAngelo twist. I hope you enjoy!!
> 
> The title is from Wild Heart by Bleachers (from Love, Simon, because I am ALSO a sucker for really soft vibey emotional queer content)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you met Nico?” Thalia said, and curse that woman - 
> 
> “We haven’t,” Nico said, voice cold. No, no, he was not - 
> 
> “Nico, will you-”
> 
> “Nope,” he said. Percy made a booing sound.

It was unideal, but not unexpected, to have one's walk across campus punctuated with an anguished wail, even if wailing was usually reserved to the library during finals, rather than the middle of the semester in the grassy quad behind the science department. 

Nico di Angelo was jolted out of his vague stupor of post-study exhaustion and, like most other unsuspecting passer-by, found his eyes drawn almost instinctively to the source of the noise.

But while most continued walking, uncaring about the outcome of the wailing, Nico paused. 

He knew those people. 

Well, he didn’t recognise the figure draped across the picnic table, and couldn’t figure it out with their messy blonde hair covering their face, but he knew the women sat across from them. He slowed his steps in a bid to overhear, ignoring the passive aggressive huff of the person walking next to him. 

“I’m sorry, Will,” one of the women said patting the figure's head in what looked like an attempt to be comforting. “I would if it wasn’t for Percy.”

“Why aren’t you single, Annabeth? Why is _everyone_ in a relationship?” the figure - Will? - moaned, knocking his head against the table again with a theavy looking hud. 

“I’d do it if I could pass as straight,” the other woman said, laughing loudly without much sympathy. 

“Thalia, I am not even that picky, no one needs to-”

“Eavesdropping, are we?”

Nico jumped as a figure sprung up behind him, distracting him from his mediocre attempt at espionage with an arm tossed over his shoulder.

“Am not,” Nico said, insisting on being petulant. “Let me go, Percy.”

“Let’s go see what’s wrong with Will,” Percy said, ignoring his complaints without even seeming to have registered that Nico had asked to be freed. 

“No, I’m fine-” he said, trying to backtrack and get to his next class without further incident, but Percy was stronger than he was - _fucking college athletes -_ and had already begun to steer them over the trampled grass towards the table. 

“Look who I found!” Percy said, waving at the trio at the table. Nico grumbled. “What’s wrong with Will?”

“He’s hitting on everyone in a square mile with the promise of an all expenses paid trip to Texas,” Thalia said.

“Percy?” Will asked, looking up at him with puppy eyes.

“What?” 

“Will you be my fake boyfriend?” he asked.

Nico blinked, somehow not expecting that to have been related to the wailing. Percy just barked out a laugh, as if this was all a normal conversation for him to be having in the middle of campus, and something he could just take in stride.

“Why do you need a fake partner?” Percy asked. 

“My mom thinks I'm seeing someone and wants me to bring them to her wedding,” he said, voice forlorn and laced with a certain level of hopelessness.

Nico almost felt bad for him. Almost. 

“Man, I’d love to see Michael again, but you know I’m spoken for,” Percy said, making a noise that could have passed for apologetic in another circumstance, before grasping Annabeth’s hand in his and kissing her knuckles. 

Will made another sad noise, and Nico felt himself snort at the sheer ridiculousness of this entire scenario. 

He regretted it instantly. 

In a flash four sets of eyes turned his way, as if they had only just registered that he was there. Really, he was sure that if it hadn't been for the snort, regardless of Percy's loud and overenthusiastic introduction, they wouldn't have noticed him.

“Will, have you met Nico?” Thalia said, and _curse that woman -_

“We haven’t,” Nico said, voice cold. No, no, he was _not -_

“Nico, will you-”

“Nope,” he said, cutting Will off and pushing himself out from under Percy’s arm to step away from the bench. Percy made a booing sound. 

“But you’re gay, aren’t you?” Will asked, and Nico narrowed his eyes, feeling his distaste grow suddenly and exponentially. 

“Glad to see I’m chosen for my winning personality,” he said with a sharp look at Will, who rolled his eyes. 

“Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate,” Will grumbled. “I’d have settled for many more men and any of the women in this godforsaken-”

“Will,” Annabeth said, voice stern as she looked between them, ignoring the anger blooming across Nico’s face. “You’re at his throat within two minutes of meeting him but think you can pass at _boyfriends_?”

Nico snorted, suddenly smug about his superiority, but Annabeth spun to look at him. 

“And _you_ ,” she said, sending him a withering look. He jumped, fighting down the urge to glare at Thalia and Percy as they began to chuckle. “You could at least be sympathetic.” 

“Me? He’s the one insulting-”

“I’m _insulting_ you? I asked you out, didn’t I?”

“Oh, yeah, wow, I’m really flattered to be asked out because you’re desperate and I’m gay,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff. He could feel his cheeks flushing red in annoyance, but didn’t feel as smug as he’d have liked when he noticed something that might be guilt flash across Will’s face.

The table had grown quiet and he had the distinct feeling that he had killed the mood, but felt no sympathy for the quartet sitting in front of him. 

“I’m going, and I’m _not_ going to fake date someone I’ve never met,” he said, aware that he was still snapping but finding himself unable to stop. 

“I’m sorry, I-” Will began.

“I’ll see you guys later,” he said, turning away from the watchful eyes of his friends, and Will, and making his way back onto the path as fast as he could. 

“He’s _infuriating,_ Hazel,” Nico said, flopping down onto a chair at their kitchen table and casting a look laced with residual frustration at the woman seated across from him. “He’s still prancing around asking out anyone he sees, like they mean nothing and he has the pick of the land.” 

“That is really shitty, Nico, but-”

“I mean, what kind of guy is that entitled? Can you believe him?” 

“As I’ve said _before_ , no,” Hazel said. Nico huffed, looking back down at the cup of coffee cradled between his hands. He loved living with Hazel, genuinely, but there was only so much of her unflappable sensibility that he could take, least of all when it was only 10 am. 

“I’m not the one being out of line here,” he said, pausing as he took a sip of his coffee to point at her. 

“He was hardly in the right, but you are milking this feud more than it needs,” she continued, talking over him.

“But-”

“Nico, it’s been a week,” she said, looking at him and _god_ now her eyes were full of _pity,_ like it was sad that he was righteously angry against this dick he had had an unfortunate run in with. 

“Maybe it’s because he’s actually the worst.”

“Or maybe it’s a sign that you’re regretting saying no to dating a hot guy,” she grumbled, and Nico was almost certain he wasn’t supposed to have heard that.

“ _Fake_ dating,” he said.

“Are you coming to Frank’s party next week?” she said, ignoring his latest input, and pointedly changing the subject. 

He shrugged, looking intently at his coffee and only making a non-committal noise. 

“Listen, you don’t have to go on a free, week long, all expenses paid, cross country trip with a hot blonde man, but you _do_ have to do something other than study and whine,” she said, bringing her gaze up to his, daring him to question her logic.

“Excuse me, I’m a delight,” he said, feeling stubborn. He knew she was right, but damn. She was cold about it sometimes.

“You’re the worst cousin I could have,” she said. 

“You have no other cousins.”

“Are you coming or not?” 

“Fine,” he said with a sigh, as if this was the worst thing she had ever asked him to do.

He could act like this was the worst thing he’d ever been asked to do, and he would, at length, but in truth, he did like Frank. It would be nice to see him, perhaps their other friends. 

It couldn’t be too bad. 

He had been right. It wasn’t too bad. 

But it was far from ideal. 

“Why is Will here?” he moaned, dropping his head onto Hazel’s shoulder as she sat perched on top of Frank's kitchen table. She pat his back in a way that could have been either an attempt at reassuring or horribly and deliberately condescending. 

He had spotted Will almost as soon as Frank had let him in the door, perhaps because the blonde man had perked up as the door opened, and caught his eye as soon as he stepped through the threshold.

But also, it was hard to miss him. For a chill college party, held for no special occasion, he really did go all out. As far as Nico could tell he had even sprung for make up, dusting something shimmering and glittery over his cheeks and eyes. And that was without even considering the jeans he wore that were more rips and tears than anything else, or his unfairly tight white t-shirt. 

“You’re obsessed with him,” Hazel remarked, and he rolled his neck to look up at her. He had _not_ been angrily watching Will dancing and smiling at some girl until he moved away and out of sight, no sir. Maybe he would fake date her and get out of Nico's head.

Hazel was looking down at him with far too much amusement and nowhere near enough sympathy as he thought he deserved. 

“I am _not,_ ” he said, indignant, and she laughed. “I think he’s highly unpleasant and wish he was easier to avoid.”

“Is that why you keep bringing him up?” she said, turning to look at him with a pointed look. Nico narrowed his eyes at her, grumbling. 

“I’m going outside,” he said instead, pushing himself up and grabbing a fresh bottle of beer before making his way to the door leading outside.

Frank’s apartment was small, in a part of town favourited by student renters, but it was nice enough to at least have a balcony. It looked out onto a crowded expanse of other buildings, and the city lights drowned out any stars, but it was familiar, so Nico relished in it.

He paused, taking a breath deep into his lungs as the door slide shut and the noise of the room of people behind him cut off into dull almost-silence. Nico di Angelo was a seasoned pro at sneaking out of busy rooms, and it was part of a well-oiled routine. He knew where he stood.

A cough cut the heady silence that Nico had found comfort in. 

“Oh,” he said dumbly as he spotted the figure sat cross legged at the end of the balcony, suddenly caught off guard, and floundering. He recognised him. 

Luck was not on his side.

Will looked up at him, blinking for a moment as if he had been caught similarly off guard, before smiling up at Nico. 

“Hey,” he said, and he sounded so _different_ when he wasn’t yelling in a panic. “Nico, right?” 

Nico nodded, sitting himself down in a bid to feel less wary, but still making sure to sit a few paces away from Will where he sat leaning his forehead against the balcony railing.

“I didn’t know you knew Frank,” Nico said, voice steady and even in an attempt to hide the sheer discomfort he was certain was radiating off of him. 

“I live with some guys on the archery team and we kind of run into each other,” Will replied, gesturing out to the city below with the beer can in his hand. 

Nico nodded. He had no idea how he wasn’t freezing in jeans as ripped as the ones he wore. He was freezing just looking at him. 

Pointedly, he looked away.

“Any luck with the fake beau?” he asked and instantly regretted bringing it up. He was desperate to know, like a seed had planted itself in his mind when he had been biting insults back at Will, and taken away his capacity to think about anything else. Nico stared resolutely at the label on his bottle as he picked at it absentmindedly.

Maybe Hazel was right. Maybe he was obsessed. 

Will sighed, a sound shot through with so much dejection it was almost physically painful.

“ _No,_ ” he said, slouching forward further than Nico thought he would be able to with his forehead pressed up against the metal before him. Nico watched wordlessly as his blonde hair lost its spring. 

“Why do you even need a fake boyfriend?” 

“Fake partner,” Will corrected, tilting his bottle at Nico. “Or real partner. Anyone, at this point.”

“Not getting back at some homophobic parents, then?” Nico asked. 

“Far from it,” Will said with a laugh. “My mom is the kind of woman that sits you down at seven and tells you why the cis-heteropatriarchy should be abolished. It's a queer wedding, for Christ's sake” 

Nico smiled at the image, but his heart ached at the idea of having family like that. That wasn’t something he could have.

“So?” he prompted, pushing down the introspection and waving Will on to continue talking. 

“My mom kept asking after my dating life, and saying she _wants me to be happy,_ ” he said, fingers jumping in air quotes. “So I caved and said I was bringing someone with me.” 

“All that and she didn't even get a name out of you? Or a gender?"

Will shrugged. "I've been avoiding her. I don't want to break her heart by telling her I lied - I'd do anything for her."

Nico nodded. He could be sympathetic to that. He glanced over his shoulder through the sliding glass door, back into the room pulsing with light and sound and bodies. Hazel had moved, now standing on Frank’s coffee table and leaning onto two figures on either side of her and singing at the top of her lungs. 

She was family, and he’d do anything for her. 

“Yeah,” he said, and he wasn’t sure Will had even heard him. 

The door slid open and a figure slammed out of the apartment, making Nico jump where he sat on the cold concrete. He heard Will curse and chanced a sideways glance. Will held out the bottle he had been holding in front of him, hand dripping with spilled beer like he too had been scared by the crash. None seemed to have got on his perfect white t-shirt.

“Hey,” the figure said, drawing Nico's attention back to him, and then Percy was dropping down next to Nico unceremoniously and giggling. Almost absentmindedly, he flopped forward, leaning his head on Nico's shoulder.

“Hello, Percy,” Nico said with an eyeroll, cursing himself, Percy, and life, as he felt his cheeks flush. He heard Will giggle, and decided to curse him too. 

“Guys, Frank is so chill,” Percy continued, mumbling absentmindedly against Nico. 

“You staying safe, Percy?” Will asked, and Nico jumped again, not realising he had even moved. But there he was, crouched behind the two of them with almost a third of his legs showing through the rips in his jeans pulled taut. 

“So safe,” Percy mumbled, and Will ruffled his hair, before ducking under his arm and lifting Percy’s weight near effortlessly off of Nico and into a standing position. 

“I’m going to sit him down by fresh air away from a five story drop,” he said to Nico with a grin, who nodded, mouth suddenly dry. 

“Sure,” he said, turning to look out over the city again.

“See you round,” was all Will replied, hauling Percy inside and leaving Nico alone again, but taking the comfort away with him. 

He couldn’t take his mind off of it. 

The weeks counted down, slipping by without him realising. He would get up and go to his classes and pass someone he hardly knew in the hall and think _you should have said something more;_ and ignore it and stop to get coffee and curl up with his textbook in the library and think _coward._

It didn’t even make sense. One semi-pleasant interaction didn’t change the fact that Will was whiny, argumentative and potentially a little tiny bit (if Nico argued, which he usually did) of a prick. 

Maybe he had nice hair and the sight of him looking anything like a kicked puppy made Nico feel like he was stealing candy from a toddler, but they weren’t friends. He didn’t owe this guy anything.

“I’m not responsible for fixing his issues,” he moaned, flopping his head down dramatically onto the desk ahead of him. The library was almost completely empty at 11pm, but he worked better at night.

Usually he wasn’t having a moral crisis, though, so he figured his distraction was justified. 

Hazel made a soft humming noise, ruffling his hair. 

“Hell yeah, boundaries,” she said, very clearly only half paying attention. He turned his head to look up at her. 

“Why do I keep feeling guilty, Hazel?”

“I’m not a psych major, I’m a vet,” she replied. “Unless you’re a farmyard animal I cannot help you.”

“Hazel, I’m in crisis,” he said and _god_ , he could feel himself whining. 

“Maybe you actually want to go, Nico.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Okay, I have no other input,” she said, and Nico frowned. “Sorry.”

He grumbled something in return that hardly made sense, before pushing himself up to stand. 

“I’m going to go yell my problems to the bats,” he announced, and Hazel made another noncommittal noise. 

“Say hello for me,” she said, and he grumbled when she didn’t look up. He couldn’t roll his eyes at her pointedly if she didn’t. 

It was a cool night, nearing the date when they could say with confidence it was no longer Spring, but not there quite yet. Summer had yet to begin in earnest.

Nico felt a shiver run through his frame, slouching in his stupidly large hoodie and digging around in his pockets for a cigarette. 

“You shouldn’t smoke,” a voice said, and Nico startled, dropping his lighter with a clatter on the ground. 

Somehow, even nearing midnight, Will Solace managed to look _bright._ The dim light above the library stairs glinted down on his blonde hair and made it glimmer. 

“I’ll make a note,” Nico said, stuffing one in his mouth anyway and directing his eyes away from Will and his stupid blonde hair. He had to fight not to look back at him. 

A moment passed. He could practically feel Will rolling his eyes at him, but he stayed quiet, until; 

“You should at least move away from the air vents, you dick.” 

Nico laughed, suddenly caught off guard and glancing behind him to the vents he hadn’t noticed. With a pointed eye roll of his own, he meandered down the dark steps and away from the wall, until he could look up the steps at Will’s figure leaning against the railing.

He looked absolutely exhausted. 

The light still cascaded down on him from above, and it was hardly doing favours, but it would have to work miracles to hide the baggy circles under his eyes. In a far cry from tight ripped jeans and glittering eyeshadow, he stood hunched forward in a baggy sweater and jeans with rips that looked worn and tattered, rather than deliberate and fashionable.

“Exams?” Nico asked, taking care to blow smoke away from Will. He shrugged. 

“Exams. Med school, generally. A glaring countdown to the day I have to tell my mother I’m coming home alone because I’m too much of a tight-ass loser to date anyone.” 

Nico stayed quiet for a moment. This was all Will was to him; he had never had a conversation with him about anything else. To Nico, Will was a man with problems to fix and a need for a fake partner. 

But it didn't take a genius to see that he was also a man with a level of dedication to someone that Nico could only begin to relate to, and that left a sudden, aching sense of lost blooming in his chest.

“How long left?” he asked.

“Two weeks until I have to tell her,” Will said. “And then a month until I fly down.” 

“Still no luck?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Will said. “I either tell her I lied or fake a break up, both of which are gonna _suck._ "

Nico breathed out, letting the rustle of a spring breeze carry the conversation and a cloud of hazy smoke. 

“She’s gonna to be so disappointed,” Will said, and Nico could hardly hear him. Will now, standing quiet and defeated and pained, was a completely different person to the man Nico had seen before. The light behind him cast deep shadows into his face and Nico could barely reconcile it with the image of Will every other time he had seen him, looking whole. 

He knew what it was like to want to do anything for family. 

And he was a long way past being able to match the sheer level of dedication Will had right now for his mother, but he knew the feeling well enough.

He also knew, better than almost anything else, what it was like to desperately need someone on his team, and to come up with absolutely nothing. 

Maybe it’d be fine.

He had no better way to spend his time off from classes, and Will was paying. It could be nice to see how normal families spent time together, and besides.

He’d never been to Texas.

Nico felt himself sigh. He dropped his cigarette onto the ground and squishing it under his boot, already knowing that he was going to regret the words that came out of his mouth, but certain that he was too stubborn to be talked out of it now.

“You’ll fucking owe me, Solace.”

Will whipped his head up so fast Nico was almost - _almost_ \- concerned he’d get whiplash. 

“For…?” he said, so obviously trying to squish down the note of hope in his voice that came out anyway. 

“Being your fake fucking boyfriend,” Nico replied. He could feel Will practically buzzing with excitement, even from where he stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh my god, Nico-”

He turned his face up to give him a withering look, but he felt the force of his glare die as soon as he saw the look on Will’s face. It was sheer, unadulterated gratitude, the likes of which Nico had never had directed at himself before. He chewed on the inside of his lip.

It’d be fine. He was getting a free week away to Austin, and - well. It couldn’t be much worse than a week on his own. 

It’d be fucking fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/10 - I'm making a bunch of edits before I finish this up for consistency of style and grammar!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nico di Angelo, do you not know the name of the woman who’s wedding you’re going to?” Annabeth said, pushing herself up from Percy's bed to level him with a stare and mounting disbelief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever just. Start writing a completely different fic before you've even slightly finished a WIP 😂
> 
> I kind of wrote this one backwards, so as the chapters go on the updates should get closer together, but we'll see!

“Question number 6!” Percy yelled, pulling a piece of card out of the bowl before him with a flourish. The sequins on his jacket glimmered aggressively, and Nico fought not to roll his eyes. 

They were having way too much fun with this. 

Nico had accepted that, as part of agreeing to fake someone he really only had passing knowledge of, he’d have to knuckle down and learn a bit about the man he agreed to spend a week with across the country. It was only fair that, by agreeing to fake date him, he did it _well._

He wouldn't half ass it. His pride was on the line.

He didn’t necessarily appreciate the aggressively flamboyant pub quiz style of study that Jason and Percy had decided to force upon him and Will. 

But, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers. The countdown until they flew out to Austin was getting steadily smaller, and when Will had run up to him in the library explaining that he had just hung up on his mother in a panic because she asked what Nico majored in and he couldn’t answer, he figured they could use a bit of support in becoming a passable couple.

He still thought his friends were far too delighted by their new role as co-quizmasters. 

He was sure that in the long run, Percy and Jason’s aggressive quizzing would help, but at the moment, he would have chosen to be anywhere other than the floor of their dorm room.

“What does your faux beau do in their spare time?” Percy said, announcing it like he was hosting a boxing match. 

“Being a stick in the mud?” Will suggested, looking up at Percy tiredly as if he was immune to the death glare Nico levelled at the side of his face. 

“Traumatising local students by making them fake date him?” Nico said in return. 

“This is basic shit, you guys,” Annabeth groaned. She was sprawled out on Percy's bed, allegedly attempting to do her homework. Nico doubted she was focusing on it, with how much time she spent berating him. “You’re awful at this.” 

“Okay, _fine,”_ Nico griped. “Medical… stuff?”

“The last question was about your majors, Nico,” Jason said. “And most people have interests _outside_ classes.” 

“Nico doesn’t,” Will said.

“Excuse _you-_ ”

“Nico!” Percy said, crumpling the piece of paper in his hand and throwing it at him. “Tell us a hobby.”

“Fine,” he said, grumbling. “Video games, I guess?” 

“Ah, great, I’ll just tell my entire family your life is video games and smoking. A great impression-”

“Let us rephrase,” Jason said, smiling graciously, as if their bickering wasn’t grating on his nerves. Nico knew better, but decided to let him suffer. “Nico, tell us, _with examples,_ how you spend your free time.”

“Uh,” he said, feeling himself flush as the attention of the room turned to him. He wasn’t usually one to volunteer information, and didn't appreciate being the centre of a sudden interrogation. “I’m pretty good at Mythomagic?” 

Will snorted.

“Problem, Solace?” he said, daring Will to make another face. 

“Mythomagic? Really?” 

“Yeah? And?” he said, but he could feel the blush on his cheeks deepen.

“Nothing, I just didn’t think you were a _nerd.”_

“Oh, says you-”

“Yes, this is good!” Percy called, clapping his hands with something akin to glee. Nico blinked, looking up at him, Jason and Annabeth. Their eyes were fixed on the duo with a delighted look that made Nico's stomach flip. 

“What?” Nico asked, looking between Will and Percy. Will seemed equally confused.

“Flirting! Keep flirting, and you’ll be fine.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Jackson,” Nico mumbled. He didn't _flirt,_ let alone with someone like Will. Will could bat his eyes and giggle and do whatever it was flirting entailed, but Nico wouldn't. His pride might make him play along, but he had to draw the line somewhere.

They continued, ignoring Nico's discomfort, and apparently having gotten bored of the question, if the fact they skipped asking Will was any indication.

“Oh, this is one is fun,” Jason said, reading the slip of paper in his hand. “Nico! Give us a who’s-who in your faux beau’s family."

“I don’t actually know the answer to that,” Percy said, peering over Jason’s shoulder.

“Uh,” Nico said, eloquently. 

“Oh my god, he doesn’t know,” Percy muttered, leaning on Jason’s shoulder and snickering. 

“Nico,” Annabeth said, slowly. Will was leaning over to look at Nico, face completely and utterly smug. “What’s Will’s mom’s name?” 

“Listen, he never fucking told me-”

“Nico di Angelo, do you not know the name of the woman who’s wedding you’re going to?” Annabeth said, pushing herself up from Percy's bed to level him with a stare and mounting disbelief.

"Technically _women._ Plural." Will said, and Annabeth groaned.

"I did know that?" Nico offered. 

“Christ alive, this is going to be harder than we thought,” Jason said. Percy nodded sagely, as if he was a tenured academic, and not a 23 year old in a sequined jacket. 

Will took roughly half an hour to explain the inner workings of his family.

If he thought he could get away with it, Nico would have closed his eyes and slept through it, but he knew that Annabeth had been right. God forbid he go to this wedding without knowing the names of the brides.

Will sat curled up against Jason's bed on the dorm room floor, naming and elaborating on each member of his family. His mother Naomi, soon to be step-mother Latricia, plus his biological older brothers Lee and Michael and step-brother Austin and half-sister Kayla, and _god_ Nico had bitten off more than he could chew. 

“I’m taking a fucking break,” Nico said, when Will finished recapping what his younger brother had been getting up to during his first year of college. Apparently he was going to be playing the saxophone at the wedding, so Nico should definitely ask him about that. He stood and stretched, not wanting to think about another Solace-Lake until he was actually in Texas.

“Thank God,” Percy muttered, leaping to his feet from where he had slouched against the wall and darting out of the room. 

“Want anything from the vending machine?” Will asked, pushing himself up to stand. He seemed either oblivious or uncaring about the fact he had just taken half an hour of Nico's life away from him, but Nico was still reeling from the dump of information to care. 

He looked at Will, about to shake his head before catching Annabeth's eye. With a stern look, she nodded pointedly at the door, and then at Will's back. 

“I’ll... come with?” he guessed, and she smiled, looking pleased that he had finally got one right. He looked back to Will, who shrugged.

“Alright,” he said, trailing out of the room. Nico rolled his eyes and followed.

The evening had gotten away from them, and the building was quiet in the way it usually was on a week night, with most students either in bed or already out at that point of the night. Nico let himself relish in the quiet of the hall for a moment as they padded down to the common room.

“Hey,” Will said, drawing his attention. Nico could see the fluorescent lights reflecting on his face, and he looked tired.

"What?" 

“Will you be okay staying with my family?” 

Nico blinked. He hadn't expected that. If he was honest, he had no idea if he would be alright, but he hadn’t figured Will would pick up on that, or care. He had hardly volunteered his distaste for large groups of people to Will, but it wasn’t hard to guess he was far from their biggest fan. 

Still - he hadn’t expected Will to be concerned.

It didn’t matter either way, he reasoned. He was this far in, and - as much as he got on his nerves - he couldn’t leave Will high and dry. It was a matter of pride, now, and he was not going to back out.

“I’ll be fine,” was all he said. “I’m just out of practice.”

“Not from a big family, then?” Will asked, and Nico huffed a laugh, but even he could tell that it was tense. 

“No,” he said. “Most of them are dead.” 

Will coughed, dropping the handful of quarters he had had clutched in his hands while he decide what to get. 

“Sorry,” Nico said with a shrug, not feeling very sorry.

“No, no,” Will said, ducking down to pick up the coins before the rolled under the heavy machinery. “It’s fine, I just, uh- took me off guard.”

“Worth it,” he said, and he felt himself smile. “Anyway, you know Hazel? We’re cousins.”

“Oh,” Will said, brightening up. “I like Hazel. We had some classes together last year.”

“Yeah. All I’ve got left,” he said with a shrug. “I’d do anything for her.” 

“Kind of like me and my mom?” Will asked, looking hopeful. Nico let himself nod. He wasn’t wrong. 

“Except I’d fake date someone much cooler for Hazel.”

He laughed at Will’s offended squawk, before reaching around him to press at the buttons on the vending machine and pull out his soda. 

“Hurry up,” he said, tossing the can at Will. “I want to finish this before 2am.”

  
  


The weeks ticked along. 

Percy and Jason did not stop quizzing Nico on the life and history of Will Solace, although they did forgo more sequin-fuelled events in favour of a barrage of text messages throughout the day. 

It was easier to mute them, at least.

Nico fought down a sigh as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, digging it out as surreptitiously as he could. It was as if the two of them had memorised Nico’s schedule to bug him while he was in classes with the strictest teachers. 

Or, even worse, a countdown set to periodically remind them to increase the frequency of their messages. He knew that the day of their flight was coming up, but the sudden, sharp rises in messages from the two of them did nothing but make him anxious. They were rapidly reaching a point where they stopped being useful, and sent Nico to an early breakdown.

He fought not to roll his eyes at the group chat open on his phone. 

**Percy to #operationfauxbeau (11:32)** **  
**@Will ! Tell us in 30 words or less about the cutest thing Nico’s ever done

 **Will to #operationfauxbeau (11:34)** **  
**Does it have to be true?

 **Jason to #operationfauxbeau (11:34)** **  
**Of course you HEATHEN

 **Will to #operationfauxbeau (11:35)**   
But nothing else about this is real???

 **Jason to #operationfauxbeau (11:35)**   
Irrelevant

 **Percy to #operationfauxbeau (11:36)**   
It’s called acting you hoe look it up 

Nico closed his eyes, shoving his phone further into his pocket and struggling to turn his attention back to the board. 

They were going to be the death of him. 

He was grateful, in a sense. Percy and Jason weren’t leaving room for them to slack, and, begrudgingly, he could admit that it was working. They had covered a fair bit. 

He knew about the worst of Will’s foolish high school adventures, and the ones that were pre-sanitised to tell to his mother. He could talk at length about Will’s extracurriculars, with bonus points for being to point out which of his siblings would care most about each one, and which would tune out at the first mention of “First Aid”. He knew how he took his coffee, his favourite dessert, his allergies, his dream vacation destination. 

And in return he had accepted that Will would have to know about him. He told him about the time he had broken his wrist, his complete distaste for peanut butter, the fact that he once had a pet ferret. The time he got locked out of his dorm and had to crawl through a window.

But it was all surface level, and he knew that. His stomach flipped when he thought about telling Will the depths of his own horrible memories, fighting the urge to run whenever the conversation might stray in that direction.

At the very least, he found comfort knowing that it would never be deep enough to get to that point. 

Will knew he was gay. He knew he had lost his family. That was all he would ever need to know about him, past the things that might come up around his family.

The lecture ended without much excitement, and Nico pulled himself up from behind his desk. He could still hear his phone buzzing in his pocket, ignoring it for until he realised the sound wasn’t just incessant group chat notifications, but an actual call. 

He paused, confused, ignoring the glares of his disgruntled classmates forced to move around him, and dug out his phone.

His bafflement only grew when he looked down at the screen, not recognising it, and cancelled it. 

He continued on, before his phone lit up again, the same number ringing in his face. With a groan, having an idea about where it was going to go, he accepted the call, but was cut off before he could even so much as say hello.

“Hey!” the voice said, excited and bubbly. 

“Will?”

“Yeah? How many people call you?”

“What do you want?” he asked, carrying on down the walkway. 

“First off, rude,” Will said, “Second, to ask you to get coffee. You said you had a free afternoon today, and I’m on campus.”

“And you can’t pick up coffee yourself?”

“No, you idiot, I’m asking you to get coffee _with me._ Y’know, sit and chat?” 

Nico felt himself pause, snapping retort dying on the tip of his tongue. 

Was something wrong? Was he actually calling this off? 

“And you couldn’t text me to ask?” he said instead, stuffing down the rampant anxiety in his stomach. If he called it off, all the better for Nico. He had no reason to worry about Will.

He heard a noise that could have been anything from a laugh to a sigh. 

“Not everyone has a fear of technology,” Will replied. “And I didn’t trust you to reply.” 

Nico felt himself snort. He hefted his backpack over his shoulder and weighed up his options. 

Well. He’d have to get used to spending time around Will. 

“You’re buying,” he said, and Will laughed. 

“I expected that was all it'd take.”

  
  


Will had texted him directions to a small café, tucked a few roads off of the main route to and from campus. The main coffee shop on campus was nice, but in the bustling mid-afternoon rush of students, it was hardly practical. 

Nico didn’t particularly think getting lost while hunting for something not much bigger than a hole in a wall was practical either, but when he finally found it and ducked into the quiet room, he was grateful for the lack of noise. And, more importantly, for the lack of people.

It was near silent, but not with an oppressive quiet. What it lacked in windows and natural light, it more than made up for with sunshine yellow wallpaper and shelves full to the brim and nearly bursting with leafy green plants. 

He would have missed Will if he hadn’t stood up and waved, tucked as he was in the back of the room by a creaky old bookshelf. 

“I thought you got lost,” he said as Nico approached, wide smile not slipping off his face. 

“I nearly did,” Nico replied. “Your directions were shit.”

True to his word, Will did buy him coffee, although it came with a scoff and teasing for his taste in bitter black coffee.

“Are you not getting enough quiz time with Percy and Jason?” Nico asked as Will sat down, passing a ceramic mug towards him. He was surprised when Will laughed. 

“I think I’m getting more than enough,” Will said. Nico frowned. 

“Then why am I here?”

Will blinked at him, face carefully and almost deliberately blank for the briefest moments, before he broke out into another wide grin. 

“Are you serious?” he asked, still grinning. Nico didn’t say anything, looking back down to his coffee. “I just wanted to hang out. You know. Chill. Spend time with you? Oh my god, this is so upsetting.” 

“Hey-” Nico started, but Will waved him off.

“If you really want it to be _productive_ you can just get used to spending time with me, Nico,” he said, and Nico huffed. 

“You say that like I’m incapable of having friends.”

“You _just_ asked why I asked to spend time with you.”

“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Tell me something your family _won’t_ ask about.”

Nico sat, watching Will think. His eyebrows were furrowed as he looked down at his own drink - _an almond latte with vanilla syrup,_ Nico’s brain unhelpfully supplied. He had been forced to learn that little fact already by Percy and Jason.

“I hope they won’t bring up any of my exes?” Will offered, looking back up at Nico. He rolled his eyes. 

“Great place to start on a fake-date,” he said. 

He felt his stomach flip putting a label on what they were doing, here in the café. It was a fake date. This was as fake date as it got. Will had _bought him coffee._

“When did you last go on a date?” he asked, ignoring the gleeful voice in his head that sounded upsettingly like Percy. It had become clear that Will was too offended to answer unprompted. Nico watched him chew on his bottom lip. 

“I think… my freshman year?” 

Nico blinked. Will was a lot, sure, but Nico had never seen someone more… friendly. 

He didn’t think a guy like Will would struggle to draw people in. He was bright, kind, generous to a fault. He had a lot to offer, and Nico was suddenly baffled that more people didn’t see that.

“Aren’t you a senior, though?”

Will shrugged, scratching at his hair absentmindedly. “Yeah. It’s been a while. She was nice, but it kind of just fizzled.”

Nico nodded.

“I don’t have any exes,” he said. Will blinked at him, face blank. 

“None?” 

“I mean, no,” he said with a roll of his eyes, voice dry and fighting not to sound defensive. “I’m not someone people are jumping at the chance to date.”

He never usually felt the need to justify his romantic choices, least of all to someone he only sort of knew - even if he had agreed to be his fake boyfriend. But his coming out was still fairly _fresh._ It wasn’t for lack of wanting affection and intimacy, for him. It may have been a fundamental inability to put himself out there to anyone he had a shot with, on top of the struggle of finding someone he _did_ have a shot with.

It wasn’t that he was still trying to hide who he was, but it didn’t come naturally to him.

“Ah,” Will said, his voice suddenly quiet. 

Nico looked up from where he had been watching the subtle swirl of his coffee before him. He couldn’t completely parse out the look on his face, or what it meant; but worse than that, he couldn’t tell why the furrow of his blonde eyebrows and deep set frown made his stomach flip with concern. 

“What?” Nico said. His voice came out sharper than he had meant it to be, and he _hated_ that his first instinct was to go on the defensive and get prickly. 

“Nothing,” Will said with a shake of his head, smiling at Nico as if he was something that had to be tamed. “Honestly. Just glad I won’t have to fight any jealous exes.”

“This isn’t Scott Pilgrim,” Nico said, hating that he felt a surge of relief at Will’s stupid smile. 

“It could be. You’d be an excellent Ramona Flowers.” 

“Are you Scott? Is that really who you want to be, in life?” he said. Will laughed, and Nico felt relief blossom out from his chest like a flower. 

  
  


The days got longer and the evenings warmer, until all of a sudden, summer was at their doorstep.

Coffee with Will became a regular occurrence. 

Will would call, and Nico would huff and roll his eyes but meet him in the same tiny café tucked out of the way whenever his phone rang. No one else called him. A jingling ringtone that didn’t stop was a summons that he couldn’t say no to, no matter how much he told himself he wanted to.

“This is for you.”

The door to the café was open wide to let in fresh air, but the room was still nearly sweltering. Nico watched Will’s hair as it ruffled with a gust of wind. 

He had pushed a folded up piece of paper across the table with his coffee, and Nico looked down at it with distaste. 

The flight was tomorrow.

He had known Will go tickets already, but seeing an itinerary folded up neatly before him felt far worse. 

“No going back?” Nico tasked, shooting a look up at Will. He rolled his eyes. 

“Ideally you would have told me that before I dropped a hundred bucks on a ticket.”

He smiled, a small thing out of reflex, but it didn't reach his eyes.

“How are you feeling about it?” Will asked. Nico shrugged, pulling the paper towards himself. The time to pull back had long passed. He was in it, now, and even though holding the ticket to the flight might have made it feel all too real, he wasn’t going to back down.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, asking a question instead of answering the one Will had asked him. Will made a soft, affirmative noise.

“Your family didn’t… mind when you came out?”

Will rose an eyebrow at him. Nico could see a look of bafflement in his eyes, before it tapered off into something closer to sadness.

“They didn’t,” he said with a shrug. Nico watched as he turned his head backwards, tilting it up to look at the ceiling. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious why Mom was fine with it. I only met Austin and Kayla when she started seeing Latricia, so they were on board already. And my older brothers just wanted to make sure I was staying safe.”

Nico nodded, unable to find any words to reply. 

“Hey,” Will said, voice quiet. He reached out his hand, setting it next to Nico’s on the table between them. “Is it going to be a problem?”

“I’m not going to back down,” Nico said, voice firm and stubborn. He knew what _It_ was, when Will phrased it like that, his voice still dripping with pity. 

“I trust you,” Will said, and Nico’s stomach flipped. “I’m just concerned about you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Nico made himself say, a rehearsed answer, something he had practiced so much that it became instinct. Will smiled, but even Nico could tell it was hesitant. 

“Just promise me that you’ll tell me if you need anything, okay? If they're too much?” 

Nico pulled his hand back, not looking at Will, not watching his hand retreat.

“Fine.”

“Promise?” 

Nico looked up at him, into his smiling blue eyes. 

_It’d be fine._

“Yeah,” he heard himself say. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell about SolAngelo to me on Tumblr @ americanbeautiies


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like you should have told me you were a space kid,” he said, walking further into the room and looking around at the decorations hanging from his walls. Glittering garlands of stars and planets hung over cork boards full of pictures and posters depicting maps of the night sky. 
> 
> Will groaned. 
> 
> “It’s impossible not to be a space kid living in Texas,” he said, sounding distinctly like he was whining, and Nico laughed again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehee it's time to meet the family 👀

“Will!”

Nico blinked, looking up from the linoleum floor before his eyes groggily. 

He was sure that to anyone used to travelling by plane, the flight from La Guardia to Austin International wouldn’t have been awful, but four hours in the air was more than enough for him. He hadn’t left New York state in years, and was fine with the train, thank you very much. 

A voice called Will’s name again, and Nico's eyes refocused, looking around the arrival hall. He could see a man with a bright smile and the determined look in his eyes Nico recognised from Will, standing just past the barrier before them and waving. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Nico could see the exact moment the wide grin broke out across Will’s face. He let out a whoop of excitement, tightening his hold on his suitcase and dashing forward to embrace the man ahead of him, leaving Nico to follow up at a slower and increasingly wary pace. 

He took a breath, steeling himself. There was time for him to run one last time through the story he had drilled into his head by Percy and Jason over the past few weeks, but - it was time. There really was no going back.

And if he couldn’t even handle one of Will’s brothers, he would fail before he even met his mother. 

“You must be Nico,” the man said when he finally stepped up to the metal barrier, grinning widely. 

After weeks of testing and retesting, he knew who was who. Brown eyes and curly brown hair could have been either of Will’s older brothers, but with glasses and a smile, it had to be- 

“And you must be Lee,” he said, pretending like this wasn’t someone he was tricking and lying to with every breath. Pretending like he was normal, and could make small talk without wanting to die.

“We’ve heard a lot about you from Will,” Lee said, glancing once at his brother with a mirthful grin. 

“Hopefully good things?” Nico asked, and Lee simply laughed, not answering the question. 

He stepped forward, reaching out to take Nico’s rolling bag from his hand and moving it towards the exit signs. 

“I can-” Nico started, stepping forward and reaching his hand out to grab his bag back.

“Haven’t you heard of southern hospitality?” Lee teased, glancing back at his brother. “Is Will not this nice?"

“I am plenty nice,” Will said, looking petulant, and _oh_ , he had already started to slip back into a warm, southern twang of an accent. 

Nico turned away from Will, following his eldest brother through the arrivals lobby of Austin International and tuning out the lilt of Will’s whines as they turned into delighted questions. Still the slightest bit dazed from the flight, he was almost surprised when they stopped before a small red car.

A man was sitting on the hood, a near mirror image of the man who had taken Nico’s bag from him. He looked up from his phone as Will hoisted himself up next to him, arms spread wide, and begrudgingly accepted a hug. Nico could just about see a smile on his lips, before it shifted to a scowl and he threw his keys none too gently at Lee. 

“Nico, this is Michael,” Will said, leaning his head against his other older brother's shoulder. Seeing them sat next to each other, the resemblance was clear, but it would otherwise be near impossible to guess they were related with Michael’s continual frown. 

“You’ll meet the little ones before you know it,” Lee said, pushing his brothers off of the car hood and sliding into the driver's seat. 

Will pulled open a door for Nico, before bouncing around to the other side to slide in. It wasn’t late when they had set out, but after a day of airports and flying and an hour added to his day from a time change, Nico was exhausted. How Will had so much energy after all of that was incomprehensible. 

In what might have been the blink of an eye, Will’s hand was on his shoulder, jolting Nico out of a doze. Lee was pulling his car up to a suburban home. 

“You fell asleep,” Will said, voice quiet. Nico blinked sleep out of his eyes, almost embarrassed at having fallen asleep. He could see a bricked house through the front windshield. In the half dark of the streetlights and warm glow from the windows, he took in the balcony atop the front door, neatly trimmed hedges, and an abundance of flowers.

“Welcome home,” Lee said, pausing a moment before getting out of the car. Nico could make out figures moving around inside the house where their shadows were silhouetted against the curtains. 

He was distracted by his own instinctual noise of protest as he saw Lee pulling his bag out of the trunk. 

“Oh, let him get his own bags,” Will said, whacking his brother's shoulder. “Go open the door.” 

Lee laughed, stepping back with his hands raised in surrender, heading up the driveway after Michael to open the front door. 

“Thanks,” Nico muttered, voice quiet in the night time air. It was, unexpectedly, a much warmer night down south than it had been even in mid-summer back in New York. He could see fireflies blinking across front lawns and all down the road. Each driveway was shrouded from the dark sky by thick trees. 

“Moment of truth,” Nico said, trailing behind Will slowly up the drive to the front door. It had been left ajar, just slightly, and Nico could see the yellow light seeping through and leaking out into the night. He almost wanted to close it, keep it in, lest it be wasted on the dark. On him.

Will looked back at him just once, a grin spread across his face, and Nico, just for a moment, felt like it was all going to be okay.

He could tell that the Solace home was big, but it definitely seemed bigger on the inside. He stepped through the door after Will, glancing around it from where he stood in the entryway. 

A wide hallway led down straight to the back of the house, where Nico could just begin to make out the bright lights of a patio. On either side, just by the glass panelled front door, were arched doorways leading into different rooms. He could see Michael had dropped himself down onto a sofa to the left, next to another young man in an orange hoodie he assumed would have to be Austin.

On every wall, there were pictures. So many pictures, of smiling women and beaming children, of graduations and vacations and travels and smiling, happy people.

And then a figure appeared, suddenly only a few feet in front of Nico and Will, with a bright grin stretching across her face. She moved in, stifling Will’s excited cry with a hug, arms wrapped tightly around her son. She murmured something against his shoulder and he laughed. Nico could see his arms tightening around his mother. 

She pulled back after a moment, turning instantly to Nico. 

Naomi Solace looked to be a very warm woman, with faint wrinkles creasing her face in a way that suggested she had spent her entire life out in the sun, smiling and laughing. She had the same voluminous hair as Will, blonde curls piled atop her head in a bun stuck through with what may have been a pair of drumsticks, or perhaps paintbrushes. It was impossible to tell.

She smiled at him too, just as wide as she had when she saw her own son, and pulled him into a surprisingly tight hug. 

“You must be Nico,” she said, hands still resting on Nico’s shoulder even as she moved away. He stood still, trying not to tense up at the prolonged contact. “I have heard so much about you. Will, are you not bringing him outside at all?” 

“Mom,” Will said gently, laughing slightly, “You just met him. Let him go.”

She waved at her son with a roll of her eyes, still looking at Nico but, blessedly, removing her hands. 

“He’s avoiding the question,” she said, winking to Nico. He felt himself crack a smile, and the iron pit of anxiety that had gripped his stomach loosened just the smallest bit. “Let’s get you boys some food-”

“Mom, it’s late, you didn’t-”

“Of _course_ I did,” she said. Nico looked at Will with confusion on his face, only to be met with a slight grimace. 

Will trailed after his mom through the house, Nico following in turn, until they stopped in a kitchen. When he saw the state of the room, he stopped short. There were pots of food on the stovetop, and bowls left on the side full of more food. He could see a young woman, hair dyed with a shock of green and arms laden with plates, moving from the counter to the table to start setting it. 

“You didn’t wait for us to eat, did you?” he asked, a curl of anxiety spinning in his stomach. 

“Oh no dear, this is for you boys after your trip,” she said, waving him off as if this wasn’t the beginnings of an absolute _feast._

“Ma’am, that’s too much-”

“Now you call me _Naomi_ or _Mom_ , nothing else, y’hear?” she said, waving a spoon she had picked up from the table at Nico like he was her own child. “And it’s not too much, I’ve been cooking for no one but Latricia and Kayla for far too long. This is a treat for me too _."_

Nico cast a helpless look at Will, who grimaced and mouthed a _sorry._

“You don’t have any allergies do you?” 

“How about we bring our stuff upstairs and then come eat, Mom?” Will asked, wrapping his arms around his mom as a neat diversion and pressing a kiss to her forehead. She rolled his eyes and shooed him off towards the stairs. 

“Oh, fine. We need to get some skin on those bones,” she said, pointing at Nico with the end of her spoon

Will laughed, good natured as always, before pressing another kiss to her cheek and pulling away to veer back towards the stairs they had passed on their way to the kitchen. 

“Is Nico in the spare room?” he asked, and in a second, Naomi had spun on her heel.

“Now honey,” she said, tone suddenly serious, and Nico felt fear mount in his stomach. “I know I’m a Texan born and raised but you know I don’t have any preconceptions about what two young man in college-”

“Oh my god, _Mom-”_ Will said, and Nico could see his cheeks flush bright red before her words began to sink in. 

“Will, I thought we had this talk before you left for college-”

“Okay, okay-” he said, walking quickly backwards out of the kitchen and dragging Nico with him by the wrist. 

As they took the stairs, dragging their bags with them, Nico watched Will mutter to himself ahead of him. 

“Oh my god,” he finally said, emphatically, turning back to Nico with something akin to dread in his eyes. “I am so sorry-”

“Hey,” he said, drawing to a stop beside Will and grabbing his wrist. “It’s fine. I swear.”

“Nico, I thought-”

“It’s _fine,”_ he said again, although he couldn’t deny his stomach was flipping. “If we make a fuss, it’ll just raise questions. We can last a few nights sharing one bed, right?”

Will made a strained noise, but nodded, before taking a deep breath and leading Nico to a door at the end of the hallway and pushing it open.

Nico blinked. He hadn’t been quite sure what he had expected from Will’s childhood bedroom, but - it wasn’t this.

For one thing, he hadn’t expected any stuffed bears, but as he appraised the fluffy teddy bear sat atop Will’s fluffed pillow, he realised he was not in the least bit surprised. Not even when he noticed, to his delight, a tiny white coat and stethoscope. 

The room was decorated about as chaotically as Will was as a person, and Nico paused to take it all in. There were postcards plastered on each wall, everywhere from Houston to Melbourne. He could see plastic stars stuck to the ceiling above Will’s bed, and wondered absentmindedly if they glowed in the dark. 

“I feel like you should have told me you were a space kid,” he said, walking further into the room and looking around at the decorations hanging from his walls. Glittering garlands of stars and planets hung over cork boards full of pictures and posters depicting maps of the night sky. 

Will groaned. 

“It’s impossible not to be a space kid living in Texas,” he said, sounding distinctly like he was whining, and Nico laughed again. 

“I’m a fan of that guy,” he said, nodding at the bear on Will’s bed. Looking up at Will, he noted a flush on his face. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Will said, far, far too quick.

“I’ll tell Percy you’re withholding vital information,” he suggested, and Will glared at him. 

“It’s-” and he trailed off into a jumbled murmur of letters and sounds.

“What was that?”

He repeated it, face red, still as incoherent.

“ _Will-”_

“Oh, my god, it’s Dr. Fluffy,” he said, voice pained.

“You named a bear _Fluffy?”_

“Dr. Fluffy,” he repeated, emphasising the title. “He didn’t go to med school for nothing.”

Nico laughed, a short, almost startled sound. He couldn’t wait to tell Jason - 

They were interrupted by a soft knock at the door. Nico would just have to wait.

A dark skinned woman peered in, eyes bright with a smile as she caught Will’s eye. Her hair was tucked under a silk scarf and she looked nearly ready for bed, but the excitement on her face was clear. 

“Latricia,” Will said with his own grin, stepping around Nico to give her a tight hug. 

“This must be Nico,” she said when she pulled back, still standing close to Will. “It’s so good to meet you.”

“Thanks,” he said, trying - almost forcing himself - to relax. He had said hello to both brides and two siblings. He was 66% through with meeting the Solaces, and he hadn’t died yet.

It'd all be fine. 

“You boys head on down,” she said, stepping back to the door, and Nico had the distinct feeling that he had been spacing out for a conversation he should have listened to.

After dumping their bags unceremoniously at the foot of Will's bed, they made their way back downstairs. In the time it had taken them to go up and down the stairs the dining room table had been set with a full spread, and a shocking amount of food. Nico could see what looked like chilli and rice and fried potatoes and even homemade bread rolls and - 

“God, Mom, you went all out,” Will said, eyebrows raised almost comically. Nico snorted. That was the understatement of the year. There were three different drink options set out on the table. 

“I want my son and his boyfriend to be well fed,” she said, before waving them all to sit down, and Nico’s brain caught on her words.

_Boyfriend._

Because as far as she was aware - he was. He was here, with Will, _sharing a bed_ with him. Because they were, in her eyes, boyfriends. 

He sat down before that thought could spiral. There had been thought after thought that threatened to dump him into a pit of anxiety, and he'd only been in the house ten minutes. It wouldn't do to freak out two days before the wedding even came around. He reached for a bread roll, because at least if he was eating, he didn't have to think.

“See? You need to feed him,” Naomi said, sitting down across from him, next to the green haired young woman who had to be Kayla, and looked pointedly at her son. Nico flushed, but Will just rolled his eyes.

“So how long have you boys known each other?” Latricia asked, turning to glance between Nico and Will. Nico shifted, looking at up at Will from the corner of his eye. 

They had been over it. Percy and Jason had drilled them on their fake story just as hard - if not harder - than they had tested their background knowledge. He probably knew it better than some of the things he had studied for his degree. 

But it still filled him with fear.

“About a year,” Will said, not looking at Nico, because _he knew the story._ Nico tried to relax, as Will continued. “We met at a party our friend Percy hosted.”

“Damn, how’s he doing?” Michael asked, looking up from his dinner. 

“Pretty well, y’know, still swimming-”

“I refuse for you to talk more about a man that’s not here,” Naomi said, cutting him off with a pointed glance at Nico. Nico’s cheeks flushed, and Will laughed, but his cheeks flushed red too, like he was embarrassed. 

“You know you can ask him yourself, right?” he said, and Nico’s stomach flipped. _Traitor._

“If you insist,” she said, a gleam in her eye. She turned to Nico, and then, all eyes were on him. 

“Do you study the same course as Will?” Kayla asked.

“No,” he said, hating how quiet he was in the face of all the eyes in the room being turned to him. “I study History.”

“That was my major,” Lee said. “What area?”

And so it continued, with Will’s whole family peppering him with questions, an endless well of small talk that Nico _hated._ It was banal, just on the edge of too personal, with each individual tidbit of knowledge being insignificant on its own, but building up into a mural that was as exposing as it was terrifying.

He couldn’t hide in the shadows, because they all seemed to really, genuinely care about who he was. 

And almost out of nowhere, it became too much. 

Nico sucked in a breath as the questions hit a lull, most of the Solaces glancing away from him for the briefest moment of respite that he seized with both desperate hands. All of a sudden he wanted nothing more than to stand up and run out of the room, but he was stuck. He was completely frozen, rooted to the spot by all the smiling enthusiastic people that wanted, genuinely and earnestly, to get to know him, and it was all just - 

“Hey,” Will whispered, leaning close to Nico and cutting off his train of thought in a flash. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said, surprised at the honesty of the statement. His voice was strained, and he took a breath. And then another. “This is. I’m-”

He heard Will make a soft noise, pulling away from him imperceptibly. And then, over the gentle noise of family dinner table chatter;

“What do you mean you haven’t called Hazel?”

Nico jolted, not expecting that to have been what he said. Faces turned towards them, and _oh_ this was worse, but then Latricia was smiling at him, warm and bright and kind. 

“Hazel is Nico’s cousin,” Will said, and a few faces nodded, making a soft noise of understanding.

“Oh honey, go give her a call,” Naomi said.

“And you must be so tired," Latricia continued. "We’ll save you some more food, if you’d like.”

“Uh- that’d be great,” he said, glancing over at Will. He smiled, and Nico felt another flutter in his stomach, but suddenly it stopped feeling like he was going to drown. 

And then Nico was - free to go, he supposed, standing up and ducking out to the sound of Will explaining how great a friend Hazel was to the both of them. Another part of the story, but only just barely a lie.

He could feel himself breathe a little easier the moment he stopped feeling seven pairs of eyes on him, with only the soft tenor of Will talking to his family in the air. 

He shut the door to Will’s bedroom with a soft click, leaning back against it with a heavy sigh. 

“Fuck,” he breathed, relishing in the silence for a minute. He wasn't going to die. It was fine. He cursed again before pulling out his phone and calling Hazel, moving to pace gently around the room. 

“Hey!” she said, picking up almost instantly. Her voice was soft, but laced with delight. “How’s Texas?”

“Are all people this friendly? Was our family just awful?” 

Hazel laughed. He could hear her shifting on her bed, miles away. 

“Southern hospitality,” she said, as if it really was as easy as that. “Is it that bad already?” 

Nico nodded, ridiculously, even knowing she wouldn’t be able to see. “I almost had a panic attack at dinner and had to leave,” he said, feeling completely ridiculous. 

“Meeting the family is a big step in any relationship,” she said. He could feel her teasing, and rolled his eyes. 

“I’m being a perfect fake boyfriend, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t do anything stupid,” she said. Nico huffed out a dry laugh. 

“I make no guarantees.”

He could practically hear Hazel smiling at him, fondly as she always did. 

“I’m always here if you need to vent,” was all she said. “Just ask if you need anything.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thank-”

“Nico! Oh, shit-”

Nico jolted, dropping his phone with a thud on the floor. He spun around to see Will stood halfway through the door frame, comedically frozen mid step. 

“Uh-”

“Nico?” a tiny voice said from the floor. “Is that Will?”

“Sorry, sorry-” Will whisper-yelled, shoulders drawing up around his ears as if he could make himself disappear. 

“Sorry,” Nico said into the phone, waving off Will’s apologies wordlessly. “It’s just Will.”

“Aw, tell him I say hi,” she said, voice warm and loud, as if Will would be able to hear her from across the room. 

“Sure thing. I should get going. Love you, Hazel.”

“Love you too!” she said, and then hung up, leaving Nico in a room with a growing silence stretching across the wooden floor. 

“Sorry,” Will said, again. “For making you jump, and for earlier.”

Nico’s eyebrows rose, looking at Will in surprise. 

“You didn’t-”

“No, I did, Nico,” he said, cutting him off gently. “It was a lot, and I forgot that you aren’t used to - well, to the Solaces. Or the Lakes, for that matter.”

He laughed gently, moving the toe of his socked foot against the floor, as if he was rubbing out an invisible mark. 

“Well, there was only so much Percy and Jason could prepare me with aggressive texts and sequins.”

“Oh, we’ll get to that soon,” Will said. “But that can wait.”

“Yeah,” Nico replied. “I’m exhausted.”

“I’ll let you get some sleep.”

Nico nodded, gripping his phone a little tighter before turning away from Will to dig through his suitcase. 

He felt Will’s eyes on him, and looked up to see Will watching him with a smile on his face. Nico felt his stomach flutter, a completely warm feeling dripping down his spine like sunlight. 

“Thank you, again, for agreeing to this,” Will said. His voice was laced with honey, and gratitude. Nico nodded.

“Yeah,” he said again. “Of course.” 

He could see Will take a breath, and paused, waiting for him to go on. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had decided to wax poetic about his deepest thanks, like he was giving a keynote speech at a Thanksgiving gala. 

“I’ll be quiet when I come in,” was all he said, and Nico couldn’t place the feeling in his chest that was left at Will’s silence. Instead he just nodded, turning back to his bag and listening as Will turned to the door and shut it behind him with a soft click. 

Nico swallowed, moving to get dressed until finally, quietly, he could lay down in the near dark of the room, lit as it was by the bedside lamp. He shuffled over to the edge of the wall, leaving as much space as he could for Will to lay down beside him, when he finally came in.

There were only two days until the wedding, and just a few after that until he went back to New York. He’d be going back with Will, of course, but - 

Afterwards, who knew. He wasn’t one for friends, per se, and inevitably he would end up back on his own. And if it wasn’t a pleasant feeling to realise that, well.

It hardly mattered how he felt about it. It was how it was. 

He shut the light off with a soft click and let himself fall back into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I have no idea what the update schedule for this is anymore! Sorry! 
> 
> The later chapters are all more finished than the earlier ones, so you can expect them to get more regular with time, but.... we're not quite there yet. I also kind of took a break because I decided I could just have three SolAngelo fics on the go and it'd be fine, SO this at least means you'll get more content of The Boys in the future! 
> 
> Please do yell at me in the comments or on Tumblr @ americanbeautiies !!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never really been a brunch person." 
> 
> “I knew there had to be something wrong with you."

Nico woke up to a silent room, confused for the briefest of moments by the brightly coloured sheets before his eyes landed on a small bear in a doctor’s coat. 

He pushed himself up to sit, thrown back into confronting the decisions that led him to where he was now, and looked around the room in natural light. 

He could just about remember Will slipping into bed the night before, near silently. He had still been a few moments away from sleep by the time Will opened the door, and Nico stayed quiet, simply lying motionless and feeling Will shuffle around in the silence of the room that wrapped around them. And when Will had finally settled, Nico found himself slipping absentmindedly into sleep with the comfort of another body breathing next to him. 

But now the day had come, brightening up the room and filling it with the muted sounds of bodies moving around in the house below him. The day had come and as much as he wanted to hide away in Will’s bedroom, he had been brought along for a reason, even if he hated the thought of seeing more people. 

Anyway - he couldn’t expect coffee to magically appear. 

Nico pushed himself out of bed and moved to the door, but felt his feet pause before he opened it. Could he just go downstairs and get coffee? Was that allowed? Why was Will not around? He internally cursed his friends for focusing on an abundance of factoids about Will that now filled his brain, rather than addressing the practicalities of what to do when visiting someone’s home as their fake boyfriend. 

His need for caffeine won out against his internal debate, though, and he opened the door a crack. Cautiously, he peered out the hallway, glancing up and down the hall while trying to make a decision. 

And then the door across from him opened. 

He jumped, and the figure across the hall jumped in turn, letting out a curse. 

“Fuck,” Michael muttered. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” Nico said, feeling a definite, distinct blush rising on his face.

“Where’s Will?” Michael asked, looking past Nico to the door. “Did he just ditch you?” 

Nico bit the inside of his cheek, and shrugged. “I assume he’s downstairs?”

With a huff, Michael rolled his eyes. “Brat,” he said, and Nico almost laughed. “Come on. You can’t hide all day in his room.”

He moved out of his room and headed towards the stairs, and almost reluctantly, Nico followed. He could feel hesitation biting at the heels of the embarrassment that came with being caught nervously unsure about what to do.

“Your boyfriend’s like a lost puppy,” Michael said as he entered the kitchen, flicking Will on the back of the head where he sat at the kitchen table. Nico grinned, fighting the petulant urge to stick his tongue out at Will when he turned back to pout. 

“I didn’t! He was asleep,” he said, voice distinctively whiney. 

“At least get him coffee,” Michael said, bypassing the coffee machine to duck his head into the refrigerator. Over his shoulder, Nico could see the clock on the oven blinking at him.  _ 8:33 am.  _ About two hours earlier than he usually woke up. He had no idea why he had woken up, or why Will had been up and at it far before even now. 

“Want some?” Will asked, and now he was looking at Nico. 

He nodded. 

Will stood, moving over to the kitchen counters to pull down a mug from the shelves. He still looked slightly rumpled with sleep, but his eyes were bright and he looked so  _ awake.  _ Upsettingly awake, even, considering it wasn’t even 9 am. 

“We have a rehearsal brunch in a few hours,” he said, leaning back against the kitchen counter as the coffee brewed.

“Is that a thing people do?” Nico asked, still stood in the doorway semi-awkwardly.

“Apparently if you’re queer and live in Austin, yes, it is.”

“I’ve never really been a brunch person,” he said, fighting and failing to stifle a yawn, and Will only laughed. 

“I knew there had to be something wrong with you,” he said. 

Nico bit the inside of his cheek. If only that was the only thing.

“At least let me have my coffee first,” he said, and lost the battle to keep matching Will’s gaze. He turned his eyes away to the window. It wasn’t the time or the place to be thinking about his startling inadequacy to be here, and besides. 

He still had to pretend that Will liked him. If not knowing the depth of his issues was a way to make it a smoother ride, it’d have to do. 

“Whatever you want,” Will said, and Nico could hear a smile in his voice. 

If only it were that simple.

  
  
  
  
  


Brunch was hosted at a small, independent restaurant close to the centre of the city. There were tables dotted around the room for guests to loiter, drink and mingle before food was served, and Nico graciously accepted another cup of coffee when he arrived. 

“I don’t get how you can drink so much coffee,” Will said, absentmindedly eyeing the cup Nico held in his hand. “Do you not get jittery?”

“Helps me focus,” he said with a shrug, fidgeting with the cup of coffee in his hand. It was just how he managed his ADHD. “I need a stimulant to have a chance in hell at getting anything done.” 

“Oh,” Will said, and Nico glanced up. He looked - surprised, suddenly. 

“What?” Nico asked.

“That's an ADHD thing," he said, and Nico nodded. That was why he did it. But Will continued. "I’m the same. I have ADHD, I mean, and caffeine helps, sometimes.” 

"That's why it helps me, too," Nico said, and Will grinned, a beautifully bright sight of the face of someone who had just found out that actually, he  _ wasn’t  _ the only person dealing with problems in life. Nico wanted to smile. 

“Will,” a voice said, and Nico saw Will jump, drawn out of the conversation they had been having with the smile dropping off his face. Nico hated to see it go.. 

“Good to see you again,” the voice continued, and Nico watched Will cast a glance over his shoulder from where he stood before him. It was impossible to tell from looking at him who had arrived, but Nico didn’t have high hopes. 

“Octavian,” Will said, voice laced with some unpleasant emotion Nico couldn’t place. 

“Who’s your friend?” he continued, and Nico felt eyes on him, finally turning to look at the newest addition to their corner.

“This is my boyfriend Nico,” Will said, gesturing half heartedly to him.  _ Boyfriend,  _ Nico’s brain supplied for him unhelpfully. 

Nico ignored it, turning and looking at the man before him. He looked vaguely like Will, in that he was blonde - but there wasn’t much else similar. He was scrawny and pale, and where Will had a face full of delight, this man seemed nothing but snobby.

“Nico,” Will continued, looking forward. “This is Octavian. My cousin.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nico said, voice plain, when he realised the man wasn’t going to be the first to speak.

“A pleasure,” he replied, not coming close to smiling. Nico frowned, feeling distinctly less welcome than he had been by the rest of Will’s family. He fought not to cross his arms over his chest self consciously, fidgeting instead with the ring on his pinky finger.

“Where did you meet your - friend?” Octavian asked, disdain rolling off him in waves as he watched Nico fidget. Nico’s frown deepened. 

He knew damn well it was a fake relationship, but Nico knew the tried and true “ignore it and it’ll go away” kind of homophobia better than anyone. 

And this man didn’t seem smart enough to know they were lying. 

It was enough to anger him on its own, but the idea that anyone wouldn’t take Will at his word was  _ infuriating.  _

“We actually met at a party stuffed full of homosexuals and party drugs,” Nico said, before Will could get a word in, and smiled as Will made a soft, surprised choking noise, as if he had inhaled his coffee too fast. Octavian tilted his head back with what could almost be described as a sneer. Nico was surprised that was even a thing people  _ did  _ in real life, but felt his blood heat up regardless.

“You should tell your friend-” Octavian started, looking affronted, but Nico cut him off.

“Actually, I’m his  _ boyfriend _ ,” Nico said, voice firm, fiery - because he was angry and he didn’t care if he was making a scene. 

“As in, we’re dating. Sometimes we even-” and he cut himself off to gasp, sarcasm rolling off him in waves. “ _ kiss.  _ But I can see that listening and making sense of things people say straight to your face isn’t your strong point, you stupid fucker.”

Will let out a harsh noise, and Nico had half a second to worry before realising that Will was holding back a laugh. He fought not to grin, instead, moving his hand and grabbing Will’s, linking their fingers likely tighter than necessary. 

“Want to get a mimosa?” he asked, turning to Will for the briefest of seconds before looking away. If he made eye contact, he’d laugh. 

“Mhmm,” Will said, still sounding strained. Nico smiled at Octavian, doing his best angelic impression of Hazel, and stepping gingerly around him. 

“What a dick,” he muttered, and Will snorted. “Sorry about making a scene.” 

“No, he had it coming,” Will said. “He is a dick.”

Nico laughed, grinning as they approached the table well away from Octavian, with champagne flutes lined up neatly and full of something that looked sweet. Will handed him a drink with the hand that wasn’t still linked with Nico’s and he smiled, clinking his glass to Will’s. 

“I’ll drink to that."

  
  
  
  


He couldn’t get the feeling that he had  _ fucked up  _ out of his head. 

They had enjoyed a lovely brunch, with Will only letting his hand slip out of Nico’s grip when they sat down. The significance of it didn’t escape Nico, and he hated the thought that he had hardly even realised he had still been joined at the hand to Will. 

But now Will had stepped away, being drawn away by his brothers for some groomsman spiel, leaving Nico to his own devices. All that translated to was Nico, stood in a corner, avoiding Octavian and fretting. 

He had hardly been appropriate to Octavian, even if he was being a dick. Will had smiled at the time, but what if he realised that Nico was actually an asshole? It was Will’s Mother’s wedding, and Octavian was Will’s family. Nico was just some dickhead along for the ride, and he had no place to be saying any of the things he had been.

“Hey, Nico, right?”

He looked up with a start as Austin meandered over to him, with what looked like a saxophone case draped over his shoulder. He hadn’t really talked to him much the night before, but his resemblance to Latricia was clear, with the same dark skin and brown eyes. Although he wasn’t technically biologically related to Will, they smiled the same way, and there was no doubt they were brothers. 

“Have you seen Will?” he continued. Nico shook his head. He had assumed he was still with his brothers sorting out some groomsmen thing. Austin seemed to be thinking something similar, if the puzzled look on his face was anything to go by. 

“Well, we’re starting rehearsal for tomorrow. He doesn’t really need to be here anymore, if you guys want to head back home?” he said, and Nico nodded. “Also, grandma Juno is looking for him.”

“Should I send him her way?” Nico asked, and Austin laughed, shaking his head. 

“If anything, let him know so he can hide. You know how it is.”

He didn’t strictly know how ‘it’ was, having most of his family be dead, estranged or across the world, but he nodded anyway. 

_ Where was Will? Had he upset him? Had he been hiding from Nico and ranting about his fake boyfriend to the whole of his extended family?  _

Nico bit his lip, trying to shut the thoughts running through his head down. He was being ridiculous. He nodded at Austin with a smile he hoped was friendly and casual to dissuade any worries, before ducking past him and other nameless figures he knew he’d been introduced to, but couldn’t remember. 

It was fine.  _ Nothing is wrong,  _ he thought, repeating it over and over like a mantra. It would be  _ fine.  _ And if it wasn’t, well, there was only so much longer he had to be with him before he could hide away back in New York and forget that any of this had ever happened.

He stopped by the front entrance of the building, pausing to try and calm himself down. He hadn’t seen Will along the way, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the anxious fog in his brain had hid him. He could get some air, and then find Will. It’d be-

“Octavian- for  _ fuck’s  _ sake.”

He paused. He had never heard Will when he was genuinely angry, but after weeks of being tested on every little part of the man it belonged to, he knew that voice.  He stepped back from the front entrance, ducking closer to where he had heard Will shout. Around the corner, he could see a door, open just a crack. 

“Your- your-  _ that man  _ is horribly rude,” a voice said, as he moved closer to it, and that was Octavian, no doubt. Nico rolled his eyes. It was no guess who he meant when he said  _ that man  _ with as much disdain. 

“Actually, Octavian,  _ you’re  _ the one who was being rude,” Will retorted, voice firm. 

“He’s your  _ guest -”  _

“You’re also a guest,” Will said, cutting him off. “You’re in town visiting  _ us _ .” 

A warm bolt of something that felt dangerously like pride rose up in Nico’s chest. He was pleased to hear a firm edge in Will’s voice, to hear him standing up for himself. To hear him standing up for  _ Nico.  _ His stomach flopped at the thought. 

“I am your family-”

“And Nico’s my boyfriend. The only difference is that he makes me feel good about myself and I like his company.”

The flip-flopping of Nico’s stomach didn’t stop. He could feel butterflies fluttering against his rib cage, because Will was standing up  _ for him. _

His mind struggled to wrap around the thought, and he was caught off guard when the door before him opened. Nico stepped back instinctively as Will moved through it. 

He looked surprised for a second, but then he smiled, moving away from the door and letting it shut behind him with a resounding click of finality. Nico caught the briefest of glances of Octavian, looking firmly chastised, and had the sense to feel smug on Will’s behalf.

“Want to get out of here?” Will asked, moving away from the room he had just left. He looked tense, like he had fire in his veins and a desire to bolt. Nico recognised it: it was a feeling he knew better than anything.

He wanted so bad to ask if he was okay. He wanted to know if Octavian had gotten under his skin in a more than superficial way, to check Will wasn’t upset, but something made him stop short. 

He wasn’t actually his boyfriend. It wasn’t his place to pry, and Will wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Sure,” he said, after a pause. “Austin asked me to tell you they’re rehearsing now anyway.”   


Will nodded, moving out towards the door quietly. Nico could see him fidgeting, wordlessly toying with the beaded necklace around his throat. 

“Everything okay?” Nico asked, unable to hold it back anymore, lest the anxiety that made its home in his stomach got the best of him.

“I’m just getting restless,” Will said, shrugging. 

“Want to show me the city?” Nico asked, and Will smiled. 

“Sounds great.” 

They set off to the left of the restaurant they had been in, under a blue sky with clouds dotted about. Will started to speed off in a burst of energy, leaving Nico no choice but to half jog towards him to catch up.

“Will,” he said, shooting his hand out and grabbing his wrist. “Slow down.”

Will jolted, glancing down at their hands before smiling at Nico with a sheepish grin on his face. Nico bit the inside of his cheek, reluctantly letting his hand drop.

“Sorry about - Octavian, and my family, I guess -” Will said as they continued walking. Nico shook his head. 

“They can’t all be perfect,” Nico said, parroting Will’s words back at him, and saw him flush, ducking his head down like he was embarrassed. 

“He’s just a bit of a dick,” Will said, and Nico nodded. 

“You aren’t wrong,” he replied. “But the rest of the Solace-Lakes seem to make up for it.”

“They aren’t perfect either,” Will said, almost like he was hesitant to admit it. And Nico wasn’t surprised. It was clear that Will thought the world of his family, and it wasn’t hard to see why. But like any family, they were a lot, and far from perfect. 

“Well, I think your family is great,” Nico said. “Even if they’re like, a normal family, and not some freakishly positive genetic mess.”

Will glanced down at him with a bright, beaming smile, and Nico’s mind went carefully blank. 

He didn’t know why he was reminded in such stark clarity that this was only ever going to be temporary, when Will smiled at him. That he would step away from it all in less than a week and be free from Will for the rest of his life. That this, their friendship, with the hand holding and bed sharing, was nothing, not really.

It made no sense that, without fail, Will’s happy face and soft sleep rumpled figure would prompt him to be aware of that countdown, the sheer impermanence of it all. It made even less sense that he had stopped looking forward to the day Will was out of his hair. It was only ever accompanied by a soft jolt of something sad, and Nico hated it.

“You okay?” Will asked, eyebrows rising in something that might have been concern, and that didn’t help to lessen the skittering of Nico’s chest. He was being stupid.

“Yeah, I’m-”

He was cut off by a loud clap of thunder, and then the heavens opened.

Will shrieked, and for some reason it sounded like delight. Nico looked up against the rain as it fell into his eyes, blinking up at the grey clouds that appeared out of nowhere. 

But then Will was grabbing his wrist and darting forward, down the pavements with his shoes slapping against the damp concrete, dragging Nico with him. He felt a smile on his face, uncontrollable. 

Will dragged him under an awning covering trolleys of books. He was panting, and Nico felt his chest rising up and down at speed as well, but he could see Will smiling, and didn’t care.

“Let's go in,” Will said, nodding at the door before them and leading Nico forward, hands still clasped together

It was a small shop, but that didn’t stop it from being filled to the brim with books. Nico was drawn in almost instantly, willing to wander around for hours. He took the lead at a slow, leisurely pace, drawing his fingertips over the spines of books as he walked around, Will only ever a few steps behind him. 

He didn’t know how long had passed, feeling like he was caught in molasses. He had paused in a corner, picking up a well loved, leather bound hardback of myths and legends. The pages were light, and his eye caught on a gilded illustration of Icarus, falling hard as he reached for the sun. 

“Nico,” Will said, voice quietly breaking him out of the reverie that came upon him when he was surrounded by books.

Nico turned, letting out a quiet curse as he bumped into Will. He stood behind him, closer than Nico had been expecting. He paused, looking up, and his breath caught. 

The sun had started to stream in through the window behind Will, casting shadows across his face. And Nico could see him clear as day, even with the sun against him, looking him in the eye. 

He was still stood close to him, almost surprisingly so. Nico could make out every freckle, the light blonde of his eyelashes, the glint of his hair, and all of a sudden he couldn’t breathe, and he  _ didn’t know why. _

“There’s something I should say before tomorrow,” Will said, words rushing out of him like he couldn’t breathe either, breaking the quiet peace of the corner they had stopped in. Instinctually Nico felt his grip on the book in his hands tighten.

Nico blinked, the magic of the quiet moment gone in a flash as a flickering bubble of concern rose in his chest. 

“Is everything okay?” he asked.  _ Was something wrong? Had he done something wrong?  _

Will sucked in a sharp breath, but then he turned his face away from Nico, eyes fixating on something on the other side of the room. 

“I just wanted to tell you I appreciate you doing this for me,” he said, sounding the slightest bit hesitant. Nico blinked. 

“It’s no problem,” he said. Will nodded, smiling at him faintly. 

“I just - I know you don’t date a lot, so this feels -”

“Will, it’s not a real date,” he said, voice gentle. “And it’s not like you’re trying to kiss me every other minute.”

Will laughed, but it sounded hollow, and Nico could feel something sitting on the tip of his tongue, like he was desperate to say it. 

“I think the sun’s back,” was all he said, looking away from Nico to the window, and he knew that that wasn’t what he was going to say, but he stayed quiet. 

“Let’s head, then.”  
  
  
  


The rain had cleared completely by the time they returned to the Solace-Lake’s bricked home. The rest of the family took their time returning, and it was a calm evening tucked away in various corners of the house before another extravagant meal. 

And then, with an ease that surprised him, the night passed with Nico tucked in the sofa next to Will. It was startlingly easy to slip into a sense of calm, even surrounded by people he had only just met. Will stayed perched on the sofa next to him the whole time, and Nico let it be. 

Before he knew it, Naomi was standing up and glancing at each of her children, and Nico, in turn.

“It’s a busy day tomorrow,” she said with a grin. “Time for bed.”

Nico glanced at the clock above the mantelpiece in their living room, blinking in surprise at the time. It wasn’t too late, really, but it was hardly early. He wasn't tired but Naomi didn't look like she was going to budge, so, dutifully, he followed Will up the stairs and into his bedroom.

Nico slipped quietly into bed, shuffling over to the side. His arm was pressed up against the wall, and the cool paint against his skin grounded him.

He heard Will mutter something about getting changed, voice quiet in the dark room they both found themselves in. Nico nodded, knowing Will couldn’t see him, and stared absently up at the plastic stars still stuck to the ceiling.

The wedding was in less than 24 hours.

It was weird.

They had only really been doing this for six weeks. Will felt like an inextricable part of his life, all of a sudden, because somehow, without Nico noticing, he had always been nearby. 

But it would end, Nico knew that. 

Will was too good for him. 

He deserved to spend his time around someone that matched his brightness, could lift him up and make him happy, and that wasn’t ever going to be Nico. He had already made it more than clear that Nico was a last resort. He was here out of Will’s necessity and desperation, and nothing more. 

And that would have to be fine. It wasn’t like Nico  _ wanted  _ his company, he had just gotten used to it. He would get used to the quiet, and the silence, just as easily.

Will crawled into the bed, keeping a safe distance from Nico as he lay down and turned off the bedside lamp. 

It would have to be fine.

“I’m really sorry about Octavian, again,” Will said, breaking the silence and drawing Nico out of his thoughts. He could feel his eyes on him from where he lay on his back, but stayed staring resolutely at the ceiling. He was surprised that Will kept feeling the need to apologise, considering that it was Octavian who was firmly in the wrong. The rest of his family had been nothing but delightful.

“Any more dickheads I should know about?” Nico asked anyway, finally chancing a look to the side. He could see bright eyes looking back at him and Will smiled, and Nico felt warm. He turned away, resolute. 

“Not ones you’ll meet tomorrow. My dad’s father can be... unpleasant. He was  _ not _ invited,” he said, and Nico laughed. He could relate, at least on that. 

The room fell back into quiet, but it wasn’t as comfortable as it had been moments before. He could feel Will wanting to say something, words caught on the tip of his tongue once more. 

“What?” he asked, forcing himself to stay looking at the stars above him.

“Can I ask about your family?” Will asked. He sounded fragile. 

Nico lost the fight with himself, turning his head to the side to look at Will. His curls were in his face, and Nico clenched his hands, tight, to stop himself from moving, reaching out to move it back. His hands stayed on his chest, folded neatly, deliberately.

This was a line they hadn’t crossed, not since that evening in Jason’s dorm. Will knew his living family was few and far between, and Nico didn’t mind that. He was very good at keeping people from knowing any more than that. 

“What do you want to know?” he asked, voice breathy, and hating the ease with which he realised he didn’t mind telling Will.

He watched Will breathe in, and could see him shrugging, as best he could while lying down. 

“Are you okay?”

Nico blinked, taken aback. It had been a long time since someone had asked him that. He couldn’t remember last time someone had asked him in reference to his family. 

“Yeah,” he said, finally, struggling to find the words. “It’s been a while.”

Will nodded, face still pressed into the pillow beneath his head. 

“That’s good,” was all he said, and Nico waited, waited for him to say something else, to ask something intrusive and uncomfortable. 

He waited for something that never came. 

“My dad still lives in LA,” he said, speaking slowly. He turned his head back to the ceiling. This wasn’t a conversation to have face to face. It was a conversation for the dark, where he could close his eyes and imagine he really was alone. “My mom and sister are buried in Italy.”

He felt Will shift, readjusting where he lay.

“Why Italy?” he asked, and Nico felt himself laugh. 

“I’m Italian,” he said, looking at Will with a faint grin still on his face that grew when Will blinked in surprise. 

“”What?” he asked, raising his head to look down at Nico. “How did I not know that?”

“Didn’t ask,” Nico replied with a laugh. It hadn’t been something on Jason and Percy’s quizzes, surprisingly. He had told them about when he had moved to New York from Washington DC, but, that was as far as it went. He was almost surprised Will hadn’t noticed his passport was red, not blue, when they were in the airport.

“Okay, okay, let me guess where in Italy,” Will said, bringing Nico back to the conversation at hand. He shifted, and then -  _ oh god, _ he was already pushing himself up to sit like it wasn’t past midnight on the day of his mother’s wedding. Nico rolled his eyes, laughing in bafflement at the man before him.

“Are you from Rome?”

“Nope.”

“Florence?”

“Nope.”

“Monaco?”   


“Are you thinking of  _ Milan?”  _ Nico said, practically giggling. Will swatted his shoulder, ignoring his laughter.

“Okay, fine,” Will said and  _ he was pouting,  _ Nico noted with a laugh. “Milan?”

“No,” he said, before taking pity on him, finally. “I was born in Venice.”

Will made a soft noise of understanding, before pausing. 

“Wait - is Monaco in Italy?” he said, and then they were both curling forward in a burst of giggles that only were only made worse by the loud  _ thump  _ on the wall above their head and a sleepy grumble from the occupant of the room over. 

When Will finally settled down, laying his head back onto his pillow, Nico shifted onto his side to face him. The bed was hardly small, but his face was close to Will's regardless. He could just about make out freckles against his skin, even in the shadowy darkness of the room.

“My sister and I were born in Venice, but they’re buried with Mamma’s family in Sicily,” he said. “I was sent to live with my dad, and- yeah.”

Nico was sure that ‘and yeah’ wasn’t enough information to explain a damn thing to Will, but he didn’t press it. He simply nodded, a sympathetic look on his face. Nico was familiar with the kinds of sympathy that accompanied any mention of grief, but Will’s distinctly lacked pity. 

“Do you get to visit?” 

“Not often. I’m hoping to after the year is up.”

“I’ve never been,” Will said. 

“It’s beautiful,” Nico replied.

“I’ll have to visit,” Will said, voice quiet, still looking Nico in the eye. He welcomed the gentle, natural shift away from the discussion of his family. His heart swelled with a gratitude he couldn’t place, and a distinct lightness, but he bit his lip and stayed silent. 

“We should sleep,” Will said after a quiet pause. Nico nodded. “Busy day tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he replied, shifting back onto his back and forcing himself to shut his eyes, as if that could will away the strange lightness in his chest that would do nothing but distract him. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. He wanted to think about now, the quiet calm of the bedroom he was in right now, with Will. 

“Goodnight, Will.”

“Goodnight, Nico.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before it all kicks off, so enjoy the softness while you can lmao 
> 
> I'm really enjoying all the lovely comments!!! Feel free to yell at me in the comments or on tumblr @ americanbeautiies


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was nearly ready, dressed for his role as bridesman along with his brothers. His tie wasn’t done up and his jacket was missing, but Nico could see the clean press of his shirt where it clung to his arms, and the rich, warm yellow waistcoat.
> 
> And Nico was standing in his bedroom half naked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At that one reader who commented that they were scared of the ‘angst’ tag, WHAT'S GOOD MATE

Nico woke up from dreams of bright skies and narrow canals lined with brick houses, to the sun streaming through the gaps between Will’s curtains. 

He took a breath. 

It was today. 

The realisation that he was more than halfway through with this whole  _ thing  _ startled him, and he couldn’t place why. 

But this was the day that counted, so maybe it wasn’t all that surprising. 

The door opened quietly, like whoever at the door was scared of waking him. He sat up to turn towards the open door, drawing his hand across his eyes.

“Oh,” Will said, stepping into the sunlit room with a bit less caution. “There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“Okay,” Nico said, stifling a yawn. He would fight the desire to draw the blanket up around his shoulders and curl back into it, even if Will seemed to think otherwise. “What time is it?”   
  
“Eight,” Will said. “I’m a bit surprised you’re up.”

Nico rolled his eyes, but couldn’t stop the next yawn, and Will only laughed. 

“When do we need to leave?” he said.

“Not until the afternoon, but Mom’s making breakfast. Wanna come down?” 

He nodded, pushing himself up from the bed and following Will sleepily out of his room. 

The breakfast was, like all things from Naomi Solace, extravagant. Nico settled in faster than he had the first night, already somehow used to the ribbing questions and laughter around the table. 

_ It was today,  _ his brain reminded him, as he looked at the faces around the table. He had managed thus far to lie believably to each one of them, and there were only so many days left to go. 

And then he wouldn’t need to see them, ever again.

It would be fine. __

“Alright, alright, y’all need to get ready,” Naomi said, eventually, pushing herself up from the table and reaching for the dishes.

“You can’t do the dishes, Mom-” Lee said, protests dying on his lips as his mom reached out and swatted the back of his hand. 

“Go get dressed,” she said, voice firm, glancing around the table and giving each person a stern look. Nico’s heart thumped as she nodded pointedly at him. “All of y’all.”

“Yes ma’am,” Will said with an eye roll, and Nico followed him up to his bedroom. Will paused as he went through the door, glancing back at Nico. 

“I’m going to be in Austin’s room with the other groom- well, bridesmen,” Will said. Nico nodded. “Are you okay to change here?”

“Sure,” Nico said, with a shrug. They had been sharing a bed for the past few nights, but he had been changing consistently in the bathroom down the hall, or while Will was out of the room. He wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to get shirtless with Will a few feet away.

Will nodded with a grin, ducking past Nico to grab his clothes from their neat pile by his window. 

And then the door clicked shut behind him, leaving Nico alone to wander over to the closet and start digging his clothes out. 

His clothes had been hung up in the wardrobe since he arrived, and he knew that they still hung there, neatly pressed and perfectly creased. 

Most of the items brought for the wedding were borrowed. The tie was Jason’s. The worn brogues were Leo’s. The suit jacket was Percy’s. They had needed to take a trip to the city to get it from his mom’s apartment, and it had been uncomfortable. 

There wasn’t anything difficult about getting dressed into something nice, even if the clothes were borrowed, but Nico felt himself lag. Everything felt slow. He was only half dressed, even though there was no reason for him to be dragging his feet. 

He wasn’t getting married. He wasn’t even in the wedding party. 

He was just some guy brought along to lie to the brides.

He muttered out a curse, turning back to the closet, digging through it in search of his shirt. He didn’t know where it had gone, and that wasn’t what he needed while halfway to a crisis. 

“Nico, are you- oh.”

Nico jumped out of his skin, turning around from where his arm was half buried in the closet. 

He was, all at once, startlingly aware that he was naked from the waist up.

Will stood in the doorway, hand on the open door, staring in Nico’s direction with a vague look on his face and red on his cheeks. 

He was nearly ready, dressed for his role as bridesman along with his brothers. His tie wasn’t done up and his jacket was missing, but Nico could see the clean press of his shirt where it clung to his arms, and the rich, warm yellow waistcoat.

And Nico was standing in his bedroom half naked. 

“Sorry,” Nico said, first to break the silence and cursing himself for drawing Will’s attention back to him. He crossed his arms in front of his bare chest, fighting down a flush that rose on his cheeks. 

Will was - well, he wasn’t skinny and pale as all hell. Nico was. 

“No, I’m sorry,” Will said, averting his eyes, but Nico kept blushing. “Are you okay?” 

“Ah,” he said, glancing back at the closet. He had sworn he’d hung the shirt up at the front. “I can’t find my shirt.”   
  
Will made a noise of assent, walking over to him to dig through the closet next to him and  _ god,  _ he could smell the rich cologne that someone had sprayed on him. His curls were still messy, buoyant, but the rest of his outfit had been tailored perfectly, crisp and neat like he was ready for a runway. Or to walk the aisle at a wedding.

“It’s here,” Will said, pulling it out and handing it to Nico. “Sorry, I think I moved- uh.”

Nico moved his gaze up and away from the shirt he had taken to look at Will, before following his gaze back down to his own chest. 

“Oh,” he said, reaching his hand up to place his hand over the ink dipping down over his sternum.

“You have a tattoo,” Will said, and his voice was strained, tight. 

“Yeah,” Nico said, tracing the inked blade on his chest. 

It was a dagger, with thick black lines, dropping down from the center of his chest to where his ribs almost met. A crisp thing, with the sharp lines of the blade surrounded by wispy thin leaves curling over his skin. 

Will was silent. 

“You’re staring,” Nico noted, voice quiet. 

“Sorry,” he said with a laugh. He lifted his hand up almost absentmindedly before dropping it again. 

“Is it weird if I…” he said, trailing off as his fingers clenched. Nico shook his head, wordless, squaring his shoulders as Will reached his fingers forward and gently laid the tips of them on Nico’s chest.

He gasped, a faint, quiet thing that was pure reflex, but Will’s hand shot back as if he had been burned. 

“Sorry,” he said again, voice still quiet but all of a sudden enough to shatter the hazy silence that had fallen over the room between them. 

“It’s okay,” Nico replied, throat dry. He was itching to reach up and smooth his fingers over the ink on his chest, as if that would do anything. Or perhaps to check that it was still there; that Will hadn’t somehow pulled the ink out of his skin.

“Did you need something?” he asked, hand still laying over his chest. 

“Ah,” Will said, blinking a few times as if to clear his head. “Yeah. My coat-” 

“I think it’s on the bed,” Nico offered, turning his back to the room and trying to ignore Will’s presence as he pulled on his shirt. 

“I'll finish getting ready with my brothers,” he said, voice quiet. “Do my bowtie, and stuff.” 

“Sure,” Nico replied, feeling equally quiet all of a sudden. “I’ll see you downstairs?” 

“Yeah,” Will said, and he smiled, a soft thing. And Nico smiled back, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “See you downstairs.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


They made their way as a family to a historic building in the centre of the city, with wide arching windows and marble tiles leading up to the door. When he entered, Nico could see staff setting up flowers, all yellow, across the building. There were stairs leading up to dressing rooms for the bridal parties, and a path leading around to an outdoor patio that would host the reception. 

Time passed quickly. There wasn’t much time left before the ceremony by the time the photographers were done, anyway. As part of their agreement Nico was drawn into photos, first by Will, then Naomi, Latricia, even Lee.

He paused as the Solace-Lakes began to move away, by a hand just lightly on his wrist. 

“Just us,” Will murmured, holding him in frame. Nico’s mouth twitched, just barely a smile. 

It wouldn’t do to disagree publicly. 

“Sure,” he said, and Will smiled, hand grasping Nico’s wrist as he pulled him closer, and the camera flashed.

“I’ve never been to a queer wedding,” Nico said when they had finished with photos, fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve. It was still just slightly too long, even though it was years old, from when Percy was just a teen and slightly closer to Nico’s size. It felt unprofessional to roll up his sleeves, though, so he stuck with them being just a bit too long. 

“Have you been to many weddings generally?” Will asked.

“No,” Nico said, cracking a soft smile, but it felt fake. “But the whole concept of it is foreign. I can’t imagine being in a room full of family there to celebrate me being gay.”

“Oh my god,” Will said, and Nico looked up with a start at the raw tone in his voice. 

“What?” 

“That’s really sad, Nico. Like,  _ really  _ sad.”

“None of my family is like, violent,” he said. “But, y’know. We don’t talk about it.”

“It’s still shitty, Nico,” Will said. “You deserve to have who you are celebrated.”

Nico was surprised, suddenly, by the fierceness in his voice. “It could be worse,” was all he said, forcing himself to shrug in nonchalance. 

“Yeah,” Will said. “But you don’t need to just accept that it shouldn’t be better.”

Nico blinked, throat tight suddenly. 

That was the thing. 

Will only knew a supportive family where this was  _ normal.  _ Nico couldn’t have that. He had made peace with it a long time ago, and to try and hope for something different -

It wasn’t for him. There was no point getting his hopes up. 

But this was about Will, today. He shouldn’t be spending the day whining about his own problems, even if he wasn’t confident they even  _ were  _ problems. It was just how life was. 

This was about Will. He didn’t need a dark little rain cloud ruining time with his family. No one wanted to be around someone with as many issues as he had, but he would be out of his hair soon enough. Until then, he just had to pretend.

“Nico, I-” Will started, suddenly straightening up. Nico blinked, surprised at the speed with which he moved to look at him. 

“Will, it’s time,” Michael called, none too gently. Nico turned to look. He had leaned around a corner, Austin just behind him looking in their direction. There wasn’t much time left until the ceremony began. 

“You should go,” he murmured, and Will nodded, biting at his lip. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you in there.”

Nico smiled. 

“Good luck.”

  
  
  


He tucked himself into a seat on his own, nodding kindly at the woman he sat next to, lest he make a bad impression about Will’s choice of fake boyfriends. The room was decorated beautifully, with yellow blossoms strewn along each bench and dangling gently from the ceiling along with strings of lights. 

They had definitely gone with a colour theme, and Nico wasn’t even slightly surprised to see it was yellow.

A pianist began to play a soft melody, and the room silenced, heads turning as one to the door behind them. 

Lee and Michael entered, stood just next to each other. Even Michael had a soft smile on his face, to Nico’s surprise, as they walked down the aisle, glinting grins flashing at their family in the audience. Kayla followed, hands clutched around a bright bouquet. 

Even knowing that it was coming, Nico hadn’t known what to expect when he saw Will enter, standing next to Austin. They were both smiling, just as their siblings had, but the sight of Will in his neat yellow waistcoat and bright smile - 

He winked as he passed Nico, stood only a few short feet away from him, and Nico huffed out a laugh, until Will’s head turned away and he walked the rest of the way to the end of the aisle. 

And then at the doors, hand in hand: Naomi and Latricia. 

The audience stood, and Nico watched, mesmerised by the sight of these two wonderful women he had only just met walking down the aisle together with grins on their faces.

They took their places at the top of the room and the audience fell as one to their seats. Nico let the words wash over him. 

He was watching Will. 

He could see his eyes glistening as he watched his mothers before him, standing between Austin and Kayla at the side of the altar. Nico watched as he laughed at their vows, grinning with him as he watched him fight not to go teary.

He watched Will, seeing him more clearly than he ever had, more than anyone else in the room. 

It was no surprise, then, that Will locked eyes with him the moment he looked towards the audience. 

Nico’s breath caught in his throat. He had been staring, anyway, and the moment Will looked up and found him in the crowd, he knew he had been caught. 

He swallowed, fighting the intense desire to look away. 

Will only smiled. 

He kept smiling, eyes on Nico until the officiator pronounced them wives, and Will whooped, clapping with delight and a happiness in his eyes that Nico couldn’t ever hope to look away from.

  
  
  


He felt a contagious smile crawl onto his face as the brides appeared hand in hand to cheers, heading for their children, and Nico, where they stood on the path to the garden for the reception.

“Congratulations,” he said with a smile when they finally arrived next to him, letting Latricia pull him into a tight hug. 

“Thank you so much, Nico,” she said, voice a murmur over the delighted cries of the people around them. “I can’t wait to see you when you next come to visit.”

His breath caught in his throat, and he forced a smile. 

“Yeah,” he managed, just barely, but she just grinned at him, and moved to hug her daughter.

With shouts of delight and bustling chatter all around, Nico was ferried to the reception alongside Will, smiles on the faces of everyone that passed. He was introduced to more and more family and friends, the word  _ boyfriend  _ ringing in his ear every five seconds. 

There were people everywhere, but this is what Nico had been brought along for. He couldn’t hide. 

It would be fine.

“Nico!” a voice said, and he turned, looking back towards the voice that had called to him. 

Kayla ran over to him, bouquet still in hand. She had been dressed in the skirt the same rich yellow as her brothers, and Nico was almost surprised at how well it suited her lime green hair. 

“This is for you,” she said with a grin, reaching her hand out and giving him a small, yellow flower, plucked from her bouquet.

“Oh,” he said, hesitating and not knowing how to accept it. Her face started to fall, just the slightest amount, and Nico scrambled, reaching out and clutching the flower in his hands. 

“Thanks,” he said, floundering with it for a minute before tucking it into the buttonhole of his loaned suit jacket.

“It’s nice to see Will so happy,” she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. She said it so matter of factly that Nico had to blink in surprise. 

“He always seems happy,” he muttered, and she grinned wider. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Because you’re there. He’s a lot happier now you’re here than he was last time he visited.”

“Ah,” Nico said, unsure how to respond to that. The reason for that was because he wasn’t having to justify the fact he was single to his family every other moment. 

He could remember with clarity the way Will had been acting when he first met him, when his dread at seeing his family was at an all time high. He had been hesitant and exhausted, and Nico - 

He was doing him a favour. 

That would make anyone happy, and anyone could do it. He wasn’t special. 

Kayla shrugged, stepping away from him with another little nod, like her work was done. She reminded Nico so viscerally of Will, with the radiant positivity even while saying something that sent Nico one step closer to a mental breakdown. She seemed so positive, even despite the fact Nico was, basically, lying to her face. 

Maybe he was a better liar than he gave himself credit for. 

“Nico!”

A hand grasped his elbow and turned him around, and then he was face to face with Will once more, unsure when he had even lost him. He fought down a gasp as he stumbled at the sudden spin, but smiled just slightly when Will beamed down at him. 

He looked so happy, so much happier than when Nico had first met him. Happier than he had ever seen him, really, now that they were finally pulling it all off. 

They were surrounded by people, who would look at them and see two men who were together. A pair of boyfriends. Just like planned.

_ You’re a means to an end,  _ his brain supplied, and he took comfort in the familiar cadence of doubt in his head.  _ This isn’t yours to keep. _

Will had no reason not to be happy, because Nico was doing what he said he would do. He was a last resort, a desperate measure, and Will was dealing with the lot life had dealt him. He didn’t want Nico here for any other reason.

Will had been saying something. 

“Sorry, I-” Nico said, blinking away the grey thoughts in his head.  _ Focus.  _

“You okay?” Will asked, a flicker of worry moving across his face.

“Yeah,” Nico said, lying through his teeth. He was good at it, apparently. “Of course. What were you saying?”

“It’s time for food,” he said, still grinning. His hand slipped down Nico’s arm to his hand, and Nico hardly noticed as Will used his grip on him to draw him across the room to a table. He smiled at the place setting before him.  _ Nico di Angelo,  _ golden ink written in curly script. 

The reception dinner seemed to pass in a flash, accented by speeches and music and laughter from all sides. Nico fell into it, surprised, not for the first time, at how quickly he had adapted to being surrounded by Solaces and Lakes and Solace-Lakes. He had Austin to his left and Will, of course, to his right, laughing and joking across him and the rest of the table. 

“Do you want to dance?” Will asked, as the final plate was cleared, turning to him with a bright grin. Nico blinked. Dinner had flown past, without him even realising, too tied up in the smiles of the people around him. 

“I don’t-”

“Oh, go on,” Lee said, leaning over Will’s place setting to shoot a wink at Nico. “Someone’s gotta do it.” 

Will smiled at him, standing up and offering a hand out to Nico. 

And Nico - 

He took it. 

He lay his hand gently in Will’s, letting him grasp it much the same as he had been doing for the past few days, and pull him up to stand, moving them both towards the dancefloor like ships drawn forward by ocean waves. 

The lights above the dancefloor were glimmering, twinkling occasionally over their heads. Will led him determinedly into a free space in the centre of the room, and Nico could see the lights glinting off the golden strands of his hair. He had no doubt his blue eyes were gleaming, bright sparkles from the lights and stars above reflecting that same endless positivity that he knew was in Will’s eyes every day. 

“You better be leading,” he said with a laugh, and Will just grinned, lifting his right hand and encouraging Nico to spin under his arm. 

“I can do that,” he replied, and Nico smiled. With his hands clutched in Will’s almost delicately, he felt  _ safe.  _

He could feel eyes on them, knew that if he looked up he would see Naomi and Latricia smiling with their warm gazes like they had been since he arrived. Anyone else would look up onto the dancefloor, and see the two of them and think they were  _ together.  _

And for a split second, just a brief moment, he could imagine that this was all  _ real.  _ That he was in a room full of people he would one day see again, and Will would lean down and smile at him and it wouldn’t be tied up and laced in with whatever convoluted mess they were in now. 

He could imagine it with a ferocity that burned him from the inside out, but it was chased with the cold shock of denial. 

He would never see these people again.

This wasn’t his, and this would never be his. 

He knew that, he had been repeating it all day, but suddenly, the reminder  _ hurt.  _

“Nico, I-” Will started, voice suddenly a painfully earnest murmur close to his ear, and Nico’s breath hitched. His voice was warm honey that was threatening to drown him where he stood, and Nico  _ did  _ feel like he was drowning, all at once.

_ This wasn’t his. _

Nico pulled away. 

His hands fell from Will’s grip, drawing into his body like a protective measure, while Will’s hands fell limp. 

Everything all at once had become far too much. 

Will, and the lights and the eyes on them from around the room and Will and his endless concern and Will, and Will, and  _ Will  _ \- 

“Sorry,” he said, feeling himself gasp with the sudden burning need to get more oxygen into his lungs. Will blinked at him, eyes wide with concern, anxiety plastered on his face even though they were close enough that there was no one they needed to pretend for. 

“Nico?” Will asked.

“I have to-” he said, stumbling over his words, head casting around frantically. “I have to go.”

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine _ ,” _ he said, but the words had to be forced out, and he knew Will had seen the effort it had taken. He didn’t believe him for a second, but he shouldn’t  _ care.  _

He stumbled backwards, away from the table he had just been sat at, ducking under the archway leading away from the dance floor. He passed under fairy lights twining through the trellises above his head, pushing his way through the mental fog that told him to  _ stop,  _ and moving towards the stairs. 

He stumbled, falling into a warm body that gasped, hands shooting out to grab his elbows before he fell. 

“Oh, honey, are you okay?” 

Nico blinked, catching his bearings to see that he had fallen into and nearly on top of Naomi Solace. Her eyes held worry, concern, and Nico’s stomach turned. 

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his arms back with a bit too much force because this was  _ making it worse _ . “Sorry.”

“Are you alright?” she asked again, looking around as if she could find whatever it was that hurt him, not knowing the very fact he was here looking her in the eye was the problem.

“Yeah, I just- need a second,” he settled on, praying she would let him go before Will caught up- 

“Of course, dear, take all the time you need,” she said, before cautiously pulling him into a short hug with a soft, careful smile on her face and  _ god  _ that hurt, that  _ hurt,  _ he didn’t deserve all the kindness she’d shown him while he’d spent the past two days lying straight to her face. 

He forced himself to nod before ducking around her, out of her grasp, and pushing himself towards the stairs. 

_ Up, up, out, out, out -  _

He could see Will duck under the trellis as he climbed the stairs and cursed as he heard him run into Naomi, taking the steps a little bit faster as if he could leave Will and all his concern behind. Because  _ god,  _ he just didn’t get that this wasn’t his fight, this wasn’t his problem because Nico wasn’t  _ actually  _ his boyfriend. It was fake, it was all fake - 

He ducked into the first room he could find and closed the door with a soft click, pulling in a ragged breath and blowing it out through his nose as slow as he could. He paced the room. This was fine, this was fine, he was  _ fine,  _ he refused to panic in a building two thousand miles away from home.

“Nico?” Will called, knocking on the door once before trying the handle. 

“I’m fine,” he said again, forcing himself to look away from the window lest his eyes turn down towards the garden full of people he was never supposed to have met. He shouldn’t be here.

The door handle turned, and he cursed his own damn stupidity. 

“Nico, what’s wrong?” Will asked, pushing into the room.

He looked up, catching Will’s eye, He looked rumpled, hair a curly mess, shirt sleeves messily pushed up to his elbow and creasing. He could instantly spot the layers of concern in his face, and they shouldn’t have been there. 

He wasn’t anything to this man, he was  _ nothing.  _

“Nico, what’s going on?” Will asked again, sounding desperate.

He couldn’t, he couldn’t keep doing this, not the smiles and hugs and gentle expectation that he would come back another time to say hello, because  _ he couldn’t.  _

“ _ Nico. _ ”

“I can’t do this, Will,” he gasped, words splitting from his chest suddenly and without his permission. 

“What?”

“I can’t do this anymore, okay, I just can’t-”

“You - Nico, what are you  _ talking about _ -”

“I can’t have a family like this, Will, I don’t know  _ how.” _

“Nico-”

“I have never been welcomed into a big house with a nice home cooked meal, Will,” he said, and he  _ knew  _ he was yelling but was completely and utterly powerless to stop it. 

“She gives me a hug every other minute and drops what she’s doing just to make sure I’m fed-” and god wasn’t that all far worse than the awful hurtful things he could have expected from someone when he was introduced as their son’s  _ boyfriend,  _ because it did nothing but reinforce the fact that this wasn’t ever supposed to be permanent, he had never deserved a reception like the one he had got from Will’s family, and he would never get it again. 

This happiness was not for people like him. This wasn’t his.

“This isn’t my home, Will,” he said, the words falling out of him, finally defeated because there it was, out in the open, and it hurt. “I’m not your family. I’m going to go home straight after this to no one and nothing.”

“You’re not going home to  _ nothing,  _ Nico, you have us - you have  _ me,”  _ Will said, voice gaining in volume until he too was just as loud. 

“Do I, Will?” Nico said, and he had cracked, laughing with an edge of hysteria drawing at his frayed corners. “We have a fake relationship that was never meant to last past  _ tomorrow.  _ That’s  _ nothing.”  _

_ “ _ For God’s sake, Nico-”

_ “No,  _ Will,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “This is nothing.” __

Will sucked in a breath, and then the room was finally, horrifyingly, silent. 

Through the open window, Nico could hear raucous laughter and musical delight, filtering up from the garden below. 

He didn’t know why his chest felt so tight. 

He didn’t know why he wanted to cry.

“Please,” Will said, voice quiet. Faint, unfocused, as if he was dissolving from the inside out and fading away. His bright eyes were wide, staring at Nico as if he had never really seen him before now. 

_ You did that, _ Nico’s brain traitorously supplied. 

“I’m sorry,” Nico said, and he could feel his throat was already strained. “I can’t-”

“Nico,  _ please-” _

“Will, I can’t,” he said again, cutting Will off as he ducked past him and left the building. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, not at all sorry for that, it was a hell of a thing to write. 
> 
> I have got to make sure the next chapter is like, as good as it can be, so there might be a delay, but hopefully you enjoyed this one!
> 
> Feel free to yell at me in the comments or on tumblr @ americanbeautiies


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will slid into the back seat next to him, closing the door and shutting out the sound of the city. He could see Michael talking to his older brother, and then a pair of warm arms were wrapping around his shoulder once more and tightening their grip on him. 
> 
> “What happened?” Will asked, voice still quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presented without comment :)

He had 14 missed calls, and counting. 

He ducked across the road with a short half-jog, barely glancing to check if cars were coming as he sped through the streets of a city he didn’t know and didn’t want to ever know. 

Most of the calls had been from Will, with a mounting number of messages left in his voicemail and a regular  _ ping!  _ of notifications telling him he had unread texts. 

His screen lit up again. 

“Hazel,  _ stop, _ ” he spit into the receiver. The string pulling him taut had snapped, just like had it had earlier with Will.

“Where the  _ fuck  _ are you?” Hazel said, voice loud and tinny over the phone. “Will keeps calling me in a panic-”

“And Annabeth, and Jason, apparently,” he said with a sardonic laugh. He was surprised any of the calls were coming through, with so many different people trying to call him. He had ten texts from Jason alone. 

“ _ Nico,”  _ she said, and he could hear the exasperation in her tone loud and clear. “Please.”

_ Please.  _

_ Nico, please.  _

He hung up on Hazel.

Will had been begging him to stay, and Nico had turned and left despite the painful twinge in his chest that told him he was fucking up irrevocably. It was better this way, he  _ knew  _ it was better this way. He didn’t belong in a life like the one Will was leading. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled, shaking his head as he shoved his phone into his pocket, like that would dispel the fog that always seemed to take over the front of his mind when he thought too hard about why talking to Will hurt. 

_ Because it was a lie,  _ he thought. Because it was nothing but a daydream about what having people love him was like, that was going to leave him high and dry at the end of it. Back in New York with nothing, no matter what Will tried to tell him. 

He stumbled, arm whacking against a figure at the corner of the street. 

He mumbled an apology at the man as he crossed the road, only half paying attention to whether the light was green. His head was cloudy, his brain still stuck in that fog. 

A car horn beeped, long and loud, and Nico jumped, drawn back into his surroundings. 

“Hey! I’m talking to you, dickhead!”

A hand grabbed Nico’s upper arm, yanking him back roughly and making him stumble as he turned. 

“Hey-” he started, but then he was dragged unceremoniously backwards. 

Before he knew what was happening, he was pressed up against a ragged brick wall. The back of his head hit the stone behind him with a hard  _ thunk  _ and a low tone started ringing through his ears. 

“What the  _ fuck-”  _ he spit, wriggling against the tight hand pinning his chest against the wall. He could feel the flower that Kayla had given him, still tucked into his buttonhole, crumpling.

And then he was on the ground, ears still ringing and palms stinging, with a dull ache spreading across his jaw. He pushed himself up as his mind flew a mile a minute.

_ Did he just get punched in the face?  _

“Punkass bitch,” the man spit, and kicked his foot out. Nico groaned as his boot made contact with his stomach, just barely missing his ribs. 

The man reached down to grab him again, and Nico kicked his leg out wildly. He would have grinned at the sound of the low thunk his shoe made when making contact when the man’s calves, but the ringing in his ears wasn’t easing up. It would have been more satisfying had he been wearing his heavier boots, but there was still something nice about the kick anyway, even in old, borrowed brogues. 

He made himself move, scrambling up to stand as the man righted himself, glaring at him with something dark in his eyes. He could feel gravel sticking to his palms, and knew he’d have to explain to Percy why his suit jacket was covered in dirt, but that was a problem for the future. 

He had bigger things to worry about, he realised with a jolt, as the man pulled out a small  _ but very sharp  _ knife. 

“Give me your fucking wallet-” the man said, almost growling -

And then, he was on the floor with a heavy  _ thud.  _

Nico blinked, and in a flash there was a figure stepping on the man’s wrist, hard, until the knife slipped from his grasp. 

“Step the fuck off,” the new figure growled, and Nico knew that voice-

“Will,” Nico breathed, suddenly aware of how shaky his voice was. His vision tunnelled, going dark around the edges, but he could see Will’s head turn in an instant, looking away from the figure and onto Nico.

He could hear more voices, barely make out other figures running up behind Will, but then he was tipping backwards to rest against the rough brick wall that he had been pinned to moments before, and slumping in a heap on the floor. 

“Nico, oh my  _ god-” _ Will was saying, as far as he could tell, as he knelt in front of him. There was something like fear in his bright eyes.

“You’re bleeding,” Will said, reaching his hand out, so delicate, as if Nico would break the moment he had someone else touching him. 

Nico reached his hand up to his face to where Will’s hand was, and god, his whole body was shaking wasn’t it, and his hands came away wet with his own blood. 

“Sorry,” he said, and Will laughed, a pained, wet sound, and then he was wrapping his arms around Nico carefully, so carefully. They were both shaking, but just enough to steady each other while they did. 

“Jesus Christ,” a voice said, and that was Michael -

Nico turned his head to look up, fighting off a wave of dizziness that made the world spin. 

“No, Nico,” Will said. “We need to check you aren’t concussed.” 

He managed a nod, and sat patiently, tuning out every voice other than Will’s as he directed him. 

“Can you tell me where you are?” Will asked, voice quiet, steady and patient. His nursing voice. It was like he had shoved the shaking down deep by flipping a switch, and he was back to the determined med student that Nico had first met all those months ago. 

“Texas,” Nico said, and felt the slightest bit warmer as Will laughed. 

“Anything more specific?” 

“I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” Nico admitted, and Will tutted. 

“And what was your plan once you figured it out? Walk to New York?” he asked, voice firm. Nico grimaced. He had every right to be angry, but he wasn’t. Even with the edge to his voice now, he was patient, earnest. Somehow that was worse.

“I’m sorry,” he said, too tired to be anything other than honest. 

He heard Will sigh, but then he did that thing where he pushed it down again, raising his hand and asking Nico to track his finger with his eyes. 

“Hey lovebirds,” Lee said, drawing their attention upwards to him. He grimaced as he caught sight of Nico’s face. “The police are here for a statement, and then you can get a ride with Michael.”

Nico nodded, taking a deep breath. He didn’t like cops, but he also wasn’t in any state to sneak away, so he let himself be helped to his feet by the brothers, and delicately walked out onto the main road.

Will stood next to him the whole time, arm wrapped around him, under his shoulder blades, to help him stand until he was told he could leave. Eventually the police waved him on, and Will helped him walk to Michael’s car, parked down the street. 

Will slid into the back seat next to him, closing the door and shutting out the sound of the city. He could see Michael talking to his older brother, and then a pair of warm arms were wrapping around his shoulder once more and tightening their grip on him. 

He gasped, more from surprise than pain, but Will loosened his grip anyway until Nico reached his hand up to keep his arms where they were. 

“What happened?” Will asked, voice still quiet, and Nico knew he didn’t mean the attack. He swallowed. 

“I shouldn’t be here, Will,” he began, throat scratchy. 

“That doesn’t explain-”

The front door opened, and Michael slid into the driver’s seat, casting a look back at the two of them as they fell silent. 

“Sorry if I interrupted,” he muttered, and Will shook his head, detaching himself from Nico with a sigh. 

“It’s okay,” Nico said, acutely aware of the loss of Will’s warm body. 

He clutched Will’s hand before he could draw it onto his lap, catching his eye as Michael pulled out onto the road. Squeezing it once, he chanced a small smile at Will, and nearly cried when he got a smile in return.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The front door to the Solace home opened, and caused immediate chaos. 

Before Nico could step in through the front door, Naomi was on him, still in her golden yellow reception dress, pulling him into a tight hug. 

“Mom-” Will started. 

“Oh my god, Nico, honey,” she said, hands reaching up to his face and hesitating around the bruises and dried blood, worry in her eyes. 

“Naomi-” he tried, but she shushed him. 

“Come sit down,” she said, voice stern as she took command of the situation. “Austin, put some coffee on. Kayla, honey, go call your mother-”

Nico could feel his throat getting tight, a hard pit of unpleasantness in his stomach. Lee was still with the police, fixing  _ his  _ mess, and here was Naomi, on her wedding night, without her wife, and not even changed out of her dress. Fussing over  _ him.  _

_ This isn’t my home, Will. _

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, and Naomi stopped her fussing to look at him. 

“Honey,” she said, sympathy in her blue eyes. “you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“It’s your  _ wedding,  _ and I’ve ruined your whole evening-”

“You’ve done no such thing,” she said, voice still stern. “We’re worried about you because we care. Now come sit down.”

“You don’t even  _ know me _ -” he said, pulling away from her as she tried to lead him to sit down and aware he sounded hysterical. 

“Honey, just sit down with us,” Naomi said, voice as calm as Will’s had been earlier, in crisis mode. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said. 

“Nico-” Will said, a note of warning, or perhaps fear, in his voice. 

“No, Will,” he said, looking up at Will. His blue eyes were wide with apprehension, but he was still. 

He could feel Naomi’s eyes darting between the two of them, before tearing his eyes away from Will to look at her. She had turned, walking into her living room to sit down, nodding once at the sofa across from her with concern in her eyes, but the same fierce determination Nico recognised in Will every day. 

“Naomi,” he said, matching her gaze as he sat across from her. Will sat next to him, curled in on himself. 

The fight-or-flight instinct wired in his gut was telling him to  _ move,  _ to leave, at least to shut his fucking mouth. 

But he has never been very good to listening to it. 

“I’m not actually dating your son,” he said, to a silent room. 

Will made a choked noise, but Naomi stayed quiet, watching them both patiently. She nodded, which could have meant anything. 

“We- it’s not his fault,” he continued, suddenly desperate to keep talking, and sparing a glance at Will. His eyes were on the floor, jaw clenched tight. “You can’t be mad at him. He wanted to make you happy, but- ah. He could have probably found someone a bit easier to deal with.”

Will made another noise next to him, and Nico laughed, a wholly self-deprecating sound. 

“ _ Nico _ -” Will said emphatically, looking up at him with a bright light in his eyes as he finished talking. But Naomi put her hand up, cutting him off gently. 

“Before you say anything,” she said, voice calm and collected and just as kind as it had been the entire trip. “I won’t pretend to know what started all of this, and we’ll talk about what I mean when I say  _ I want you to be happy,  _ William.” 

She was looking at Will as she spoke, but turned to look at Nico, pausing as if she was weighing up her words. 

“I know that you make my son happy, Nico. That’s what makes me happy. More than happy, even.”

Nico sucked in a breath, not sure where to begin. He didn’t see how it was possible that a mess like him, who could ruin a family celebration, would ever make Will happy. 

“Mom-” Kayla said, walking around the doorway with a pot of coffee in hand. She paused, surveying the scene before her. “Mama’s on her way back.” 

“Okay, honey,” Naomi said, pushing herself to stand and looking once more at Will and Nico. “I’ll leave you two to it. It seems like you have some things to talk about, Will.”

Nico’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but before he could ask what she meant, Naomi had turned towards her daughter and was out the door. 

Will stood up, silently walking to the coffee pot Kayla had left on the table and pouring himself a mug. Wordlessly, he poured a cup for Nico, sliding it to him black. 

Nico swallowed, grasping the cup in his hands. His palms were scraped up and his head still throbbed.

“Let me start cleaning the cuts on you,” Will said, not looking Nico in the eye as he spoke.

Nico nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and watching Will’s back as he ducked into the other room to grab a first aid kit. 

The room stayed silent when he returned, save for the small click of the plastic box as Will opened it. He dropped to the ground, kneeling on the floor before Nico where he sat on the sofa. 

Gently, cautiously, Will reached up to cradle Nico’s chin in his hand, light fingers just barely touching him. Nico fought not to gasp, but winced as Will drew an alcohol wipe over the cut on his jaw. 

“Sorry,” Will murmured. Nico let his eyes flutter shut. 

“It’s okay,” he said back, a featherlight whisper, and he knew that when he spoke it would dust lightly over Will’s fingers. “Just wasn’t expecting it.”

Will continued to work in silence, apologising every so often as Nico twitched or moved. He had had a concussion test, but his head still felt like it was full of cotton. 

“Your hands aren’t as bad, but they should still be cleaned,” Will said, gently taking Nico’s hand in his and drawing his attention back to the present. Nico nodded, not trusting himself to say anything more, lest he get torn up with it all being  _ too much _ . 

“Will,” Nico said, eyes on his hands while Will worked. His hands were so much bigger, broader, less pale. Nico’s nail polish had chipped, and for some reason, with Will holding his hands, it felt obvious. 

“Hm?” Will said, focusing on the scratches on the heel of Nico’s palm. 

“I’m sorry for telling your mom.”

Will looked up at him. His blonde hair flopped gently into his face, but his eyes were clear and brilliant beneath them. 

His hands had stilled, and Nico regretted speaking. 

“It’s okay,” Will said, and he sounded like he meant it. He always sounded earnest, and Nico had no idea if he was just like that, or an excellent liar. 

“Is it really?”

“I don’t think she’s disappointed that we lied to her,” he began, before pausing. He chewed on his lip and Nico had half a mind to tug it free from his teeth to stop him. 

“But?” Nico prompted, feeling unspoken words on Will’s tongue. Will sighed. 

“Well, I think she’d be disappointed if you didn’t come back to visit,” he said with a small laugh. 

“What did she mean when she said we had things to discuss?” Nico asked. 

He wasn’t expecting Will to flush, but he could make out his red cheeks before he ducked his chin down and looked away. 

“I may have-” Will began, cutting himself off. “I may have told her how much I liked you, the other day.”

The dark realism that had been chasing him all the way from New York was hot on his heels, crushing Will’s words with an irrefutable reminder that _ this wasn’t for him,  _ and no matter what happened, it was still fake.  __

This could never be his.

Nico raised an eyebrow, fighting down the traitorous flicker of something  _ nice  _ in his stomach. 

“That far into the narrative, Will?” he asked, but his stomach had started to twist.

Will huffed out a breath, something that could have been a laugh in any other circumstance. His hands squeezed Nico’s, almost absentmindedly, and Nico fought not to flinch his hands away. 

He was taken aback when Will looked him in the eye, bright eyes fiercely determined. 

“You still don’t get it,” he said, looking at Nico with a calculated look. 

“What?” he asked.

“This isn't pretend for me, anymore.”

And just like that, the world tilted out from under Nico. 

Like a bolt of lightning the nagging voice at the back of Nico’s head was shattered, lit up with a myriad of shining lights that repeated, _ this isn’t pretend for me,  _ over and over again in his mind, and he didn’t know what it meant but the idea that Will wasn’t just  _ lying,  _ hadn’t been acting this whole time - 

He was being far too quiet, for far too long, and he knew he should say something but the words wouldn’t come, and if they did he knew they would tear him up from the inside out.

“You don’t need to say anything, but I just -” Will continued, and he still wasn’t releasing Nico’s hands, and he could feel the warmth of them radiating out from him and his heart was going to  _ burst,  _ from nervous energy or just because he knew what Will meant when he said it wasn’t pretend- 

“You deserve to know that I like you, like that. For real, even if this” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “Is just nothing.”

Nico sucked in a breath as Will parroted his own words back at him, and his mind went blank.

“Will,” he said, hating how faint his voice was when he spoke, unable to hear anything other than  _ this is nothing.  _

“Please don’t,” he said, quietly, and Nico could barely begin to see tears in the corner of his beautiful bright eyes. 

“ _ Will _ ,” Nico said, voice firm, and he knew he was on the verge of an epiphany or a very early breakdown. 

_ This isn’t pretend for me, anymore.  _

But Will was already standing, moving towards the door with a sad smile on his face, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. 

“I’ll get someone to set up the spare room,” he said, and then he was gone, with the door shutting behind him with one final click. 

Nico sucked in a breath, dropping his head into his hands and hardly feeling it when his stung palms were battered by the weight of it. 

He didn’t know how he had managed to so irrevocably hurt Will, or why he felt like his heart was going to break seeing a man he’d known for less than two months in tears. 

All he knew was that he  _ hurt,  _ that there was a pain in his chest that ached at the idea of Will upset, and only got worse when he realised it was all his fault. He wanted to see Will smile, and laugh, dancing with him under bright lights like he had been earlier before Nico ruined everything.

He wanted to take back all the things he had done to cause him pain, but more than that, to make amends, to apologise, to move forward so it never happened again. 

He wanted to see Will happy, and he wanted to be the one to do it. He never wanted to hurt him again - 

He just wanted to make Will happy.

“Oh my god,” he said.

And his brain burst into light, every little thing clicking together just like that. He could hardly focus with the weight of what he realised was so, glaringly obvious came crashing down on him. It was roaring in his ears as loud as a god damn ocean and  _ jesus,  _ he really hoped that that wasn’t just the concussion. 

He liked him. 

He liked the fierce determination that lit up his eyes every other sentence. He liked when he followed him around a bookstore, he liked getting tipsy on mimosas with him. He liked that they didn’t wake up together each morning because Will was up too early, but made him coffee regardless. 

He liked the calm and the chaos, he liked the late night laughter, the yellow, the light touch of his hands on his chest and face and soul. 

He liked Will Solace.

In a dizzying rush of motion he pushed himself up, off the sofa and around the table, leaving his cup of coffee ignored on the table as he moved out of the living room and into the kitchen, ducking his head around the room as if he could spot Will. 

“He’s upstairs,” a voice said, and Nico zeroed in on the figures at the table. 

Naomi smiled where she sat at the kitchen table, hands resting between Latricia’s. She nodded towards the door behind him.

“Thank you,” he breathed out, unable to find the words for the rest of his feelings. He owed these two women so, so much, but that was something for another time. Right now, he could only focus on Will. 

“I won’t lie, he deserves a  _ big _ explanation,” Latricia said, leaning her head on her wife’s shoulder. “But once he gets it, he’ll be right as rain.” 

Naomi smiled, pressing a kiss against Latricia’s forehead. Nico nodded, taking their smiles as a blessing to move. 

He nearly stumbled in his haste to get to the stairs, dashing up them and taking them two at a time by the end, and then he was at Will’s door and pausing, hesitating, because  _ god,  _ what right did he just have to walk in there and expect him to listen? 

He took a breath. 

It wasn’t for him. 

More than anything, Will deserved an answer. An apology. 

“Will?” he called, knocking once on the door before turning the handle with a soft click. 

He opened the door to a dark room, the only light coming from the faint glow of streetlights streaming into the room. A crisp breeze fluttered into the room, drawing the curtains away from the window, and illuminating a figure perched on the windowsill. 

Will looked up as Nico stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, pulling his legs towards his chest. He looked so  _ small.  _

“Hey,” Nico said. Will nodded, smiling at him softly,  _ painfully _ . 

Nico realised for the first time since Will had found him on the ground, that he was still in his bright yellow waistcoat. But the press of it was nowhere near as neat as it had been at the start of the day. 

It had become decidedly less rigid, and distinctly more real. 

“Hey,” he said in return, gesturing to the space on the window before him. Nico made his way over, hoisting himself up onto it and turning away from the rest of the room. 

He couldn’t see much outside past the lush green of the trees bordering the sidewalk, but the buzz of cicadas was a gentle backtrack to the quiet of the room he sat in. The light cast a soft glow on Will’s cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said. 

Will looked up at him, wordlessly gazing at him. He nodded for him to go on, and Nico did. 

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you how I felt about being around your family,” he said. “I promised I would tell you if it was a problem, and- I didn’t.” 

Will nodded, teeth biting his lip hard and Nico could see the skin was chapped and worn and that urge to pull Will’s lip free was stronger than ever. 

“Thank you,” he said, eyes meeting Nico’s. Nico nodded, and turned his face away to look into his bedroom. 

“I think that I - well, I’ve realised more about how I feel, and,” he stammered, cutting himself off. He could feel Will’s eyes on him. 

The anxiety in his chest was building, and he hated that he was stammering so much. Will deserved better than this, than a stumbling wreck. He deserved everything good in the world, and that wasn't Nico.

_ This isn’t for you,  _ the voice in his head whispered, curling around his brain like acid. 

_ Fuck you,  _ he thought. 

“I really like you, Will,” he said, still unable to look at the man next to him. “I really, really do.”

He heard Will’s breath hitch, and continued. 

“I understand if after everything you want me to leave early, or if when we get back you-” 

“You’re kind of thick,” Will said softly, cutting him off before he could finish. 

And then he was leaning forward and cupping Nico’s jaw with his hand, and turning him back to face him.

Nico sucked in a breath, letting himself be guided to look Will in the eye. Will was staring, eyes fierce, determined, and Nico felt like he was drowning, but wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else. 

“Tell me to stop,” Will breathed. 

“Don’t,” he replied, head shaking almost imperceptibly. 

Will’s lips were chapped, rough against his own, but the weight that lifted off his chest when he pressed his mouth against his wiped every thought from Nico’s mind.

He gasped, bringing his hands up to Will’s jaw and pulling him forward, just enough to bring him closer, closer. Will’s hand fell firmly between the two of them on the window sill, keeping himself steady. 

He pulled back, such a slight amount, and Nico could still feel his breath when he spoke.

“You are infuriating,” he said, eyes still fiercely meeting Nico’s. “and I don’t want you to leave.”

“I won’t,” Nico said, but Will cut him off with another soft press of his lips to his. 

“I don’t want you to just fuck off when we get back to New York, either,” he said. 

“I  _ won’t,”  _ Nico said again, an oath, a promise, a prayer.

“You keep saying that this isn’t yours, but it  _ is,”  _ Will said, voice incensed with passion. Nico nodded against him, kissing him, kissing him, kissing him. 

“Nico, I’m  _ yours,” _ he said, and Nico gasped. 

“Yours,” he repeated, bringing his forehead to rest against Will’s, relishing in the way Will kissed him again and again and again and  _ again _ . 

He felt like he was going to drown, slipping down and sinking to the bottom of the sea with only Will’s hands on him, but so long as he still was here right next to him, Nico had a feeling he’d be okay.

“ _ Yours _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOD that was so much fun to write . Thank you for all the lovely lovely comments! Hopefully the wait wasn't too long between this chapter and the angsty hellscape of the last one
> 
> You'll likely noticed I added another chapter as well, woohoo! It shouldn't be too long to wait for it but I'll keep ya updated.
> 
> Also there’s a spotify playlist now LMAO >> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4qEq6cGhGrEuITewz4xjAk?si=mBJh3amVSs-QKL68A1kbMw
> 
> Yell at me in the comments or on tumblr @ americanbeautiies


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you’re not actually dating?” Kayla asked.
> 
> “Well, we-”
> 
> “I’d bet they worked it out,” Lee said with a grin.
> 
> “Did everyone know except us?” Michael grumbled.
> 
> “Not everyone, but-”
> 
> “I’m so confused,” Kayla said, and Will groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to the soft vibes now! This last chapter has just been haunting my brain for the past few days so I just had to finish it and get it posted
> 
> Also all your comments are just, so sweet and so lovely, and I appreciate them all so, so much! Much love to absolutely all of you!

Nico blinked his eyes open to soft light filtering through the curtains they had left open last night. 

The night of the wedding had ended with Nico and Will stumbling to his bed. The exhaustion of the day had caught up to them, and they fell into bed still fully clothed, hand in hand. 

He glanced down at his borrowed suit, now rumpled the way slept-in clothes often is, and his eyes caught on the hand resting lightly on his stomach. 

He turned to the side, and there was Will. 

In a rare turn of events, he was still asleep. Perhaps it was too early even for him. Perhaps he was just tired. Either way, Nico had never managed to wake up before him, and was unprepared for how peaceful he looked when he wasn’t awake. 

He looked completely and utterly  _ soft.  _

Nico felt his breath catch in his throat, mind thrown back to the memories of the night before. To the way Will had grasped his face and kissed him, and kissed him, and told him he was his. __

With a soft sniff, Will began to shift, rolling onto his side and moving his arm further across Nico’s stomach. He flushed, but didn’t move away. 

“Will,” he said, voice quiet. 

“Hm?” Will said, blinking his eyes open and looking blearily at him. Nico looked at him, light dancing on his sleep rumpled face, and his heart stuttered, so full of affection for the man before him that he felt like he was going to burst.. 

He cared so deeply for him, for all the things he had done and continued to do even while Nico was a disaster.

Will was so  _ good,  _ and he deserved the world. 

If Nico didn’t say something now, he never would.

“I want you to be happy,” he breathed. 

That was it, he supposed. 

His whole reason for doing any of this, if he thought about it, even when he had thought Will was a pain in his ass. He was a man full of so much love that deserved just as much in return, and that was all Nico has ever wanted to give him. 

But it had started as wanting Will to be happy. In the span of a few short weeks, it had grown into something more. Nico wanted to be the one to make him happy.

Will blinked at him, wordlessly. He was still freshly awoken with sleep in his eyes, as he took in their surroundings, and the words Nico had told him. 

“I think I have that covered,” he finally said with a smile, arm tightening briefly around Nico. 

“That was so cheesy,” Nico said, but the urge to pull away rose sudden and unprompted in his mind, the thought thrown into his brain by the dark voice of doubt that he was so, so used to. 

He didn’t want to, he really didn’t -

“Will,” he said, hating the hesitance in his voice. He  _ didn’t want to pull away -  _

But Will just smiled, softness in his eyes like he knew exactly what was going on inside his mind. It was a look that Nico had come to recognise as concern, and sympathy, but never pity, and lacking the sharp pain of feeling belittled. 

“Let me say it explicitly, then,” he said. He shifted over until the hand that had started on Nico’s stomach shifted onto the bed, and he was hovering over him just gently.

“You make me  _ happy,  _ Nico.”

Nico felt himself flush, blinking hard and fighting with himself to keep Will’s gaze. He was completely and utterly unprepared to respond to something like that, but the urge to move away from him receded gently like the tides. 

“You make me happy even when you’re a pain in the ass,” he said. “You make me happy  _ because  _ you’re a pain in the ass, and I don’t want you to ever change who you are.” 

“Okay,” he said, voice soft, almost disbelieving, but wanting so hard to trust the man before him. 

For once, he would take the words someone said to him at face value. 

“You having problems doesn’t make me like you less,” Will continued, like he didn’t know how to stop. “I’m not expecting you to be flawless. I like you because you  _ aren’t  _ flawless.”

Nico sucked in a breath. He could feel the weight of Will over him as he breathed, a comforting shadow that made him feel safe _.  _

“Will,” he said, voice quiet, but Will’s attention was drawn to him nonetheless. 

“Fuck,” was all he said, and then he was leaning down towards Nico, pausing a hairs breadth away from his mouth. “Can I-“

Nico nodded, vehemently, reaching up as Will continued to lean forward, letting himself be pressed into the bed and dragging Will down closer to him. He was breathing him in like he was drowning and Will was oxygen. 

“I want to take you on a date,” Will murmured, pressing another kiss to Nico’s mouth, and he blinked up at him. “I want to date you.”

Nico turned his head, and Will’s next kiss pressed against his cheek. 

This was a lot. 

The part of him that wanted to bolt, to run and leave it behind, had returned. Part of him wanted to leave to New York and not talk to Will ever again, leave the memories of the Solaces and the Lakes and the Solace-Lakes back in Texas, and never return. 

But most of him didn’t. 

“I don’t usually meet the parents before going on a date,” he said with a smile. “Or make out with someone in their childhood bed.”

Will paused, lifting himself up away from Nico, shoulders framing him. Nico let himself look appreciatively. 

“Do you want to stop?” 

With a flush, Nico shook his head, and Will grinned, bright eyes and bright smile lighting up his face. 

“I want you to take me on a date, too,” he said, reaching his arms back up to play with Will’s hair, and Will smiled, a bright, beautiful thing. “And I think I’m okay doing things a bit backwards.” 

“I can get on board with that,” Will said with a smile, and kissed him again. 

  
  
  
  


He dreaded going downstairs. 

He knew that, at some point, he would have to face the people he had spent the past few days lying to, and apologise, but he didn’t want to do it  _ now.  _

But Will had insisted on breakfast, and made it clear that Nico could wait upstairs if he wanted to, but he would  _ not  _ be getting any coffee until he went down to get it himself. 

Nico grumbled but relented, his desire for caffeine slowly winning out. 

“Hey,” he said, as Will moved towards the door, triumphant at having successfully bribed Nico to follow. He paused, turning around with eyebrows raised. They had gotten changed into something actually comfortable, and looking at him, Nico felt soft. 

Quietly, Nico stepped forward, reaching his hand out to hold Will’s, gently interlinking their fingers. He nodded, and Will grinned, opening the door.

Austin was standing at the end of the hall when they stepped out, looking like he had raided the kitchen cupboards for breakfast before sneaking away back to his bedroom. He blinked at the two of them, eyes shooting down to their interlocked hands, and Nico swallowed. 

“Are you feeling okay, Nico?” he asked, looking at Nico with something like concern in his eyes. Something soft, like genuine curiosity, and care. 

Nico nodded, and Austin smiled. 

“Cool,” he said, wordlessly moving on with his day. 

Nico felt himself deflate with relief, and Will smiled, tugging him along down to the kitchen. 

The rest of Will’s family weren’t as chill about it. 

“So you’re not actually dating?” Kayla asked, leaning forward on the kitchen table, still in her fluffy pyjamas.

“Well, we-”

“I’d bet they worked it out,” Lee said with a grin. Nico flushed. 

“Did everyone know except us?” Michael grumbled.

“Not  _ everyone,  _ but-”

“I’m so confused,” Kayla said, and Will groaned, flopping forward where he sat at the table. Nico snickered. 

“Are you bullying these two?” Latricia asked, wandering into the kitchen. 

“I think they deserve it,” Michael said, and Lee laughed, seeming to agree. Will rolled his eyes.

“I did it for Mom,” Will said. “Like you’ve never lied to her.”

“Never on this scale-”

“Your Mom wants to talk to you, Will,” Latricia said, breaking into their conversation. Nico watched him fall silent, and felt a bubble of discomfort rise in his chest.

“Now?” he asked, and she nodded, glancing between him and Nico. 

“Both of you, if you feel up for it, Nico.” 

It felt unfair to leave Will to face it alone. He was as much a part of this as Will was, after all. And he didn’t want to field his sibling’s questions alone.

So when Will stood, he did too, to a chorus of laughter and jibes from Will’s siblings. They trailed Latricia, moving to the patio with mugs of coffee in hand. 

Naomi was sitting with her own cup on a bench, but it seemed to be close to done, like she had been out there just thinking for a while. She was watching the yard behind the house, eyes cast out over the grass serenely, to where it sloped down into a line of trees. 

Latricia moved up to her, sitting next to her wife and leaning against her shoulder. They both smiled as Will sat down, Nico following suit next to him. 

“How are you feeling?” Naomi asked Nico, and he blinked. He hadn’t seen himself much in the mirror, but could tell that his jaw was still tender. He hadn’t fallen into a coma from an untreated concussion, though, so felt like he was okay. 

“I’m so, so sorry for last night,” he said, and Naomi smiled. 

“You’re allowed to say you hurt without apologising for it,” she said, and Nico felt his cheeks flush. She turned to Will. 

“Will,” she said, and Nico fought not to sink back into the chair, to hide and remain unseen. 

“What happened?” she asked, eyes deep with a sympathetic look Nico had recognised so easily with Will. He heard Will sigh, and reached his hand to the side, linking his hand quietly on the bench with Will’s. 

He glanced up at Nico, smiling at their hands where they sat between them. Nico could feel eyes on them, but felt safe, secure, with Will next to him. He hoped, with all he had, that Will felt the same.

“I asked Nico to pretend to be my boyfriend, so you wouldn’t worry about me,” he said. Nico could see a look of sadness shoot across Naomi and Latricia’s faces. 

“Honey,” Latricia said, and Will shook his head. 

“It wasn’t anything you were doing to make me feel bad,” he said. “I promise. I just- I wanted to make sure you were happy, at your wedding.”

Naomi stood, moving across the patio in a short few steps and wrapping her arms tight around her son. 

“I will be happy no matter what you do, William,” Nico heard her mutter against his hair, and saw Will nod. His eyes were wide, and turning glassy. “So long as you’re here.”

“Mom,” he said, voice cracking, and she hugged him tighter, before pulling back the smallest amount to look at Nico. 

“Come here,” she muttered with a laugh, pulling him in gently, doing her best to avoid his bruises. He felt more arms wrap around his shoulders as Latricia moved over, feeling her beside him pressing a kiss to her wife’s shoulder. 

When they pulled back, Naomi turned fully to face Nico, crouching down before him. 

“I want you to know that you are a delight,” she said, and Nico felt his mouth twitch up into a smile. “You’re always welcome here, and you never need to lie about who you are or how you’re feeling.” 

Nico nodded, feeling his throat grow scratchy with unshed tears. Will wasn’t someone who would have told her about the things Nico had said to him. She wouldn’t have been told about his family, about his fears, about his fundamental unfamiliarity with being comfortably queer around others. But somehow, he had a feeling she knew the worst of it anyway. 

“I’m also sorry for lying to you,” he said, voice croaky and she smiled. 

“Apology accepted,” she murmured. “As long as you boys are happy.”

“We, ah- we talked about it this morning,” Will said, voice faint. Nico glanced over at him, at his red cheeks. 

He was embarrassed. 

Nico smiled at the thought of it. Not ashamed, never ashamed, but unsure how to navigate a relationship around his family. Nico was in the same boat, and the thought of treading something new alongside Will was reassuring. 

“We figured,” Latricia said, glancing pointedly at their hands, still linked on the bench between them, and it was Nico’s turn to flush. “We’re glad it all worked out.”

Will nodded, and Nico felt him squeeze his hand where it lay under his. 

“But remember, Will,” Naomi started. “If you weren’t expecting to be needing anything, I’d always prefer you ask and be safe than not use-”

“Oh my  _ God,”  _ Will yelled, shooting up to stand. Nico felt his face flush. 

“Will, it’s just-”

“Nope,” he said, stepping over his mother where she sat laughing on the patio. “We are  _ not  _ going to need  _ anything, _ and definitely not in my  _ childhood bed.”  _

“You don’t need to be embarrassed-“

He threw his hands up and moved around Latricia, stepping through the door to the house with flushed cheeks and leaving Nico sitting on the bench alone. 

Naomi winked at him, and his cheeks felt even warmer. 

“I’m - uh,” he said, standing up and stepping around her carefully. “Thanks. Sorry. Yeah.”

He hurried after Will, knowing that he was leaving Naomi and Latricia smiling together. 

If this level of embarrassment was the price for someone knowing the truth, he would take it in a heartbeat.

  
  
  
  


The rest of the trip passed without too much incident, although it hadn’t been without it’s hitches. 

There was one trip to the police station for the both of them that had been unpleasant, but even that had had nothing on the phone call he’d had with Hazel. 

“Nico  _ fucking  _ di Angelo-” she had yelled over the phone, late in the day just after the wedding. 

“Hazel-”

“This is what I meant when I said don’t do something  _ stupid,  _ Nico, you-” she tapered off to let off a frustrated yell. “You  _ ass.” _

“I know, Hazel, I-”

“You didn’t even call me, I had to hear from  _ Annabeth,”  _ she said, and Nico’s heart hurt. He could hear her crying. 

He had fucked up. 

“I’m sorry, Hazel,” he said, and heard her suck in a ragged breath. “I’m really sorry. I- You deserve better than that.”

“Nico,” she said, and her voice was watery. He heard her sniff. “I love you so much, you dick.”

He laughed, and to his delight, she laughed too.

“Did you at least sort yourselves out, after a stunt like that?” she said after a moment, and Nico nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. 

“Yeah,” he said, and Hazel made a pleased noise. “It’s- we’re- well, we’re gonna see how it goes.”

“Can I assume you finally realised how long all this has been going on for?” she said, and Nico rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he said. “He told me that he’s liked me for a while, now-”

“Are you serious?” Hazel said, cutting him off. “I meant  _ you.” _

He blinked. 

“What?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was fucking obvious.”

“No it wasn’t,” he muttered, but he could feel his face heating up. 

“Uh, it was,” she continued. “Nico, you wouldn’t shut up about him for  _ weeks. _ ” __

“Listen-” he started, but Hazel interrupted, laughing lightly.

“No, I’m calling Jason and Percy. They’re never going to believe this.”

He has grumbled, and ignored their smug, needling messages for the next few days, but couldn’t deny that they were probably, slightly, a little bit right. Maybe.

The rest of the trip passed quietly, with evening walks and day trips out to the city, exploring it in the warm sun with Will at his side. It was a beautiful city, it turned out, when he was actually looking where he was going, and not wandering about in the middle of the night.

“Now you come back for Thanksgiving, y’hear?” Naomi said, hand on Will’s cheek as they stood saying goodbye in the departure hall of Austin International. Nico half expected her to pinch it like he was six years old. 

“You’re just as welcome to visit, Nico,” Latricia said, glancing at him. He nodded, heart fluttering. She had an even gaze, looking at him like she too was remembering her words from the day of her wedding, and his panic. 

“Thank you,” he said. He meant it, and she smiled, like she knew. He swallowed, and turned to the rest of the figures gathered around them. 

They were the first to leave, but Austin and Michael would be flying back later that week. Naomi and Latricia would be jetting off for their honeymoon just after, for a week that was hopefully more restful than their actual wedding had been. 

“Thank you for having me,” he said, voice soft, quiet. 

He meant it in the sense that they had welcomed him into their home, but they had done far, far more. They had to know that.

“Always,” Naomi said, and Nico smiled. 

“Okay, we should-“ 

“Oh!” Kayla said, cutting Will off and ignoring his eyes rolling to dig through her pockets. “This is for you two.” 

She handed her older brother a small envelope, and he raised an eyebrow quizzically at it. As he tore it open, Nico peered over Will’s shoulder.

Inside looked like a selection of paper squares, and looking closer, Nico realised they were photographs, printed on glossy paper. He blinked down at them as Will tipped them out and held them in his hands. 

They were photos of them. 

“We were all taking photos of the wedding anyway,” Austin explained. “And there were enough nice ones of you guys that we printed them.”

Will passed a few to Nico, and he stared down at them. 

There wasn’t any consistency to them, aside from the subject. 

Most were from the wedding, but Nico could spot some from the brunch the day before. Will handed him one of the two of them laughing, flutes clinked together in a cheer, likely having just finished complaining about his cousin.

More than a few of them were taken when they had been with the photographer, smiling wide and standing close. There were even more before the ceremony had begun; of them in the gardens, with Will’s siblings, or just talking and smiling at each other. 

But there was one of the two of them dancing. 

The lighting wasn’t perfect, but whoever had taken the photo had captured the exact moment that Will had begun to spin Nico under his arm. They had both been smiling, and it was hard not to see the affection bubbling between them, even from behind a camera. 

Will was looking at Nico with bright, intense eyes and a wide grin on his face, that Nico hadn’t truly seen on the night. Looking at it now, it was impossible  _ not  _ to see the emotion, the affection,  _ the love,  _ on his face. 

In the photo, Nico’s smile was soft, something private, but he remembered the lightness in his chest when Will had brought him onto the dancefloor. That smile had been so, so genuine. 

Nico looked up at the same time as Will, feeling seen. The Solace-Lakes grinned back, drawing them each into more hugs.

“Okay, let them go,” Lee said, and the two smiled. 

“Safe trip!” Latricia called. Nico turned back to wave before heading towards the security line. He’d be seeing them again.

He linked his hand in Will’s, and held it the whole way home.

  
  
  
  
  


They landed in New York in the late afternoon. 

As expected, he was bombarded with text upon text as soon as he switched his phone back on. There were a fair few selfies and photos from the collection of people waiting for them in the arrival hall, and Nico’s stomach flipped with anxiety. 

Nico knew that he would have to face his friends sooner rather than later. There would be questions and probably some frustration about the stint he had pulled on the night of the wedding, but even worse, there would be endless mockery for the fact he had not, in fact, known how head over heels for Will he was. 

“You know this is going to be an absolute shitshow, right?” he muttered to Will as they wandered through La Guardia. Will only laughed. 

“Absolutely,” he replied with a grin, moving his hand to Nico’s and lacing their fingers together. 

Nico looked up at Will, squeezing his hand tightly in his with a smile on his face. 

It had been a shitshow from start to finish, if he was being honest with himself, but at least they knew where they stood, now. 

It really would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my favourite thing to write is certified Embarrassing Mom Naomi Solace
> 
> This is a slightly emotional thing to finish because once again I'm just, blown away by how much love I've had for it - I read and appreciate absolutely all your comments with a dorky grin on my face, and I'm so, so glad people are enjoying it! I put a lot of my own emotions into writing (like a SAP) and it's so gratifying to see that it comes across well to readers. 
> 
> There are more projects in the works, and I also just really love the universe I created for this fic so I may add more in terms of follow ups, but either way until I post again, please do come yell at me on tumblr @ americanbeautiies !!

**Author's Note:**

> :D 
> 
> I have no idea what the upload schedule is going to be like for this, or how long it'll be (sorry) but it'll probably move quicker now CH1 is up. We'll see!
> 
> Yell about SolAngelo with me on tumblr @ americanbeautiies


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